Winemaker Notes
This beautiful magenta-colored Merlot opens with an enveloping essence of blackberries picked on a warm summer day. The elegant aromatics develop with dried flowers, wet stones, and herbs. The palate is full and mouth-coating with prominent notes of blue and black fruits. Rich and feminine, with a soft, integrated mouthfeel and a finish that lingers.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This full-bodied red has aromas and flavors of blueberries, dark chocolate, cedar and dried herbs. It’s both firm and plush with broad, chalky tannins encasing the dark fruit. Try after 2026.
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Vinous
The 2022 Merlot displays wonderful varietal character, with sweet herbs, gravel dust and violet pastille complementing crushed blueberries. It's pleasantly sweet up front, yet refined, with round, plush textures and mineral-inflected blue and black fruits all guided by juicy acidity. This finishes with admirable length and a spicy tinge, leaving a hint of blackberry to mingle with silky tannins. It's a total pleasure to taste. The Merlot hails from 2014 plantings and was refined in 44% new oak.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Winemaker Chris Figgins has slowly transitioned to getting Merlot for the 2023 Merlot from cooler sites and giving them a shorter aging window of 15 months. The resulting wine possesses great elegance through a full-bodied frame of rich blue fruit, dried herb, and floral aromatics. The oak is well-integrated, and the tannins supple and supportive. This will continue to drink well over 10-12 more years.
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Wine Spectator
Tight with tension, this red offers black currant, pencil lead and bay leaf flavors that build structure and tannins on the finish. Best from 2026 through 2033.
With generous fruit and supple tannins, Merlot is made in a range of styles from everyday-drinking to world-renowned and age-worthy. Merlot is the dominant variety in the wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank regions of St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is often blended with Cabernet Franc to spectacular result. Merlot also frequently shines on its own, particularly in California’s Napa Valley. Somm Secret—As much as Miles derided the variety in the 2004 film, Sideways, his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc is actually a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.