Sterling Merlot - what happened in 1999?

[RAD]

Ekmetta,

Like IK, I too haven't had the 99 Sterling merlot, but my experience with 99 merlots thus far (Duckhorn, Shafer, and Pride on the high end, Bogle on the low end) has been very good. I'd second his hypothesis that perhaps the wine hasn't "opened up" yet. Or perhaps it's an off-bottle or year for Sterling.

RAD