Winemaker Notes
This Merlot is very food-friendly and pairs well with a wide range dishes from spaghetti to filet mignon. It is also delicious with pork, lamb and casserole dishes with pancetta or mushrooms.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
One of the producer's signature wines, in a region becoming well-known for the variety, this elegant, herbal-tinged wine does not part with the Napa Valley's imprint of boldness in its length and breadth of rich red fruit, clove, vanilla and toasted oak.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A tantalizing wine, the 2013 Trefethen Family Vineyards Merlot plays delicately on the palate. The wine's red fruit, dried earth and savory herbs clearly speak of the grape. It's medium bodied and soft tannin delivery is gentle and soothing on the palate. Drinking well now, I would like it as a match with seared skirt steak. (Tasted: July 20, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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.
As one of Napa’s coolest sub-appellations, the area begs for diversity among its vineyards. Merlot and Chardonnay firmly compete with Cabernet Sauvignon for a place here. Some of Napa’s best Zinfandels also come from the Oak Knoll District.
Situated far in Napa’s southern end, Oak Knoll receives a strong cooling influence from both the San Pablo Bay and the Pacific Coast’s evening fog and breezes. Summer days are warm but on average ten degrees cooler than in St. Helena farther north up the valley; summer nights are chilly. A long growing season promotes for leisurely ripening of grape berries, resulting in an impressive balance of sugars, phenols and acidity.
Notable producers include Trefethen, one of the appellation’s oldest wineries, Robert Biale, legendary Zinfandel producer and Lewis Cellars, a family-run, hands-on establishment.