merlot vs cabernet

[Innkeeper]

Hi Autumn, and welcome to the Wine Board.

Several years ago, well decades now, 60 Minutes ran a segment called “The French Paradox.” The gist of the piece was that red wine let Frenchmen live longer than they otherwise deserved. Almost immediately red wine became more popular in the U.S. than white wine for the first time in a long time. When folks went to restaurants looking for red wine they were presented with Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet Sauvignon had recently usurped Red Zinfandel as the most popular red wine. The reason for the later development was that Zinfandel producers had settled the argument about who could make the most overblown Zinfandel in the world by consumers who turned to Cabernet. So, the Red Zinfandel producers turned their grapes over to the White Zinfandel producers, and Cabernet producers ruled the world. The problem was that the folks who flocked to restaurants looking for red wine and were served Cabernet, found many iterations of it a little harsh. Then along came Merlot.

Merlot had for centuries been a blending grape, primarily in Bordeaux. Even on the East Bank of the Garonne, where people claimed the wine was made from Merlot, the fact is that Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon were blended in. The Franc sometimes in almost equal quantities, and it added much character and depth. Merlot is soft and singularly dimensional, and that is what it lends to most blends. There were and are a few tiny places in Europe where varietal (single grape wines) Merlot does well because age of vines and terrior add dimensions to it. Collio in Italy is one on those, and I enjoy Collio Merlot to this day. Other Italian Merlot has been planted and made in the post French Paradox era, and is just as bad as American, Australian, and Chilean Merlot.

Back to post paradox America. Very little Merlot was being grown, and consequently very little was varietally produced. Some of it that was, was not too bad. Sort of like the little pockets in Europe. Then restaurateurs and their customers discovered that Merlot was much more approachable than Cabernet Sauvignon. The race was on regarding who could grow and produce more Merlot than anyone else. Restaurants could not get allocations, people bitched, and more Merlot was produced. The wine that people were clamoring for was singularly dimensional and loaded with oak. So why did people like it?

Simultaneously with development of Merlot was Oaky Chardonnay. Originally Chardonnay was made in a variety of ways, lots of them good. Then some producers discovered that the most expensive Chardonnay in the world came from tiny little places in Burgundy that aged very special Chardonnay in old oak barrels. So New Word producers led by America, started oaking virtually all Chardonnay. This has reached the point where even inexpensive Chardonnay is treated with tea bags of toasted oak sawdust. Somewhere along the way restaurateurs and wine writers mutually got on this oak bandwagon. Oak marries well with multi dimensional wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. It overpowers wines that have little to offer like most Chardonnay and Merlot.

So, now we have a country, if not a universe, that thinks that wine should taste like wood and not like grapes. That Autumn is the story of Merlot. Maybe someone will tell you a Cabernet Sauvignon story.