Newbie to Merlot

[Innkeeper]

WW is right, your friend gave you what I consider a rarity, a decent American varietal merlot. The same goes for those from Oz. Chilean ones are fine if you like the flavor of green peppers in your wine. Some people do, but I don't like the flavor even in green peppers. Merlot is very widely planted, but only grows consistently well (more than one isolated producer) in a few places. There is Pomerol and St Emilion on the east side of the river in Bordeaux. Then there is Collio, the most far northeastern part of Italy, smack up against the Slovenian border.

So why do so many other people produce merlot? Well a few decades ago most Americans drank white wine. Chardonnay was king. Then 60 Minutes ran a segment one Sunday night called "The French Paradox." The gist of it was that the French lived longer because they drank red wine. So people ran out and bought red wine. Most of what was readily available was cabernet sauvignon. They found that cabs were complex, a bit harsh when young, and not at all like the one dimensional oaky chardonnay they were used to. Then someone came along with a one dimensional, oaky, approachable wine called merlot, and the race was on.

You can only add dimensions to a wine in a limited number of ways. You can add different ingredients, e.g. oak. Older vines and special terroir add dimensions. Then, you can blend it with the juice from other grapes. If oak does it for you, grab any merlot you see on the shelf. The only consistently high quality varietal merlot region I have found is Collio. Blended merlot comes from many places including Bordeaux. On the west bank they blend it into cabernet. On the east bank they blend cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon into it. Cabernet-merlot blends are found in America (California, Northwest, and elsewhere), Chile, and Australia. Of course the folks from Oz will blend anything with anything so they also produce merlot-shiraz blends, as well as merlot-shiraz-cabernet blends. Most of these blends almost always outshine varietal merlot from the same producers and/or regions.

[This message has been edited by Innkeeper (edited 12-11-2001).]