Winemaker Notes
Blend: 76% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A tiny 500'ish-case production based on 76% Merlot and 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, the deep ruby/plum-hued 2016 Merlot Columbia is a beauty that does everything right. Black cherries, currants, green tobacco, and damp earth as well as a touch of chocolate all emerge from this plump, medium to full-bodied, rounded beauty that will drink well for over a decade.
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James Suckling
Plenty of blackberries, iodine, blueberries and stones on the nose and palate. Full body. Firm and silky tannins and a pretty, bright finish. Shows focus and brightness.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Columbia Valley Merlot shows good quality on the nose, with notes of fruit, dusty and soft florals and dark chocolate. Medium to full-bodied in the mouth, the wine has an elegant textural appeal that blossoms into a focused expression with balanced acidity and tannins. The finish is grippy and spicy, showing a food-friendly wine that has good tension and will age beautifully. This should deliver a solid expression over the next decade and a half and will be well worth the investment.
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Wine Spectator
Refined and sleekly layered, with handsome black cherry and dried sage flavors that persist toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2024.
Northstar, located in Walla Walla, Washington, aims to make Merlots that can be considered among the world's best, using fruit sourced from one of the world's best regions for the variety: Washington state. Winemaker, David "Merf" Merfeld, blends New World fruit with an old world winemaking style, influenced by Bordeaux's "right bank," to create his highly-acclaimed wines. Northstar produces two Merlot-based wines from the Columbia Valley and Walla Walla AVAs, as well as the Stella Maris red blend and extremely limited production bottlings of the blending component varieties that Merf uses as his "spice box" in creating Northstar's Merlots.
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.
A large and geographically diverse AVA capable of producing a wide variety of wine styles, the Columbia Valley AVA is home to 99% of Washington state’s total vineyard area. A small section of the AVA even extends into northern Oregon!
Because of its size, it is necessarily divided into several distinctive sub-AVAs, including Walla Walla Valley and Yakima Valley—which are both further split into smaller, noteworthy appellations. A region this size will of course have varied microclimates, but on the whole it experiences extreme winters and long, hot, dry summers. Frost is a common risk during winter and spring. The towering Cascade mountain range creates a rain shadow, keeping the valley relatively rain-free throughout the entire year, necessitating irrigation from the Columbia River. The lack of humidity combined with sandy soils allows for vines to be grown on their own rootstock, as phylloxera is not a serious concern.
Red wines make up the majority of production in the Columbia Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant variety here, where it produces wines with a pleasant balance of dark fruit and herbs. Wines made from Merlot are typically supple, with sweet red fruit and sometimes a hint of chocolate or mint. Syrah tends to be savory and Old-World-leaning, with a wide range of possible fruit flavors and plenty of spice. The most planted white varieties are Chardonnay and Riesling. These range in style from citrus and green apple dominant in cooler sites, to riper, fleshier wines with stone fruit flavors coming from the warmer vineyards.