How to appreciate Merlot

[Innkeeper]

Hi Sforeman, and welcome to the Wine Board. There are some "easy" reds to start on. At the end of next month the 2001 Beaujolais Nouveau will hit the deck. This is more like a bottle full of fruit juice than the reds you've been tasting. Don't go out and get a 2000 Nouveau in the meantime. This wine fades fast. You can get a bottle of what I call plain ole Beaujolais. It won't have any other descriptors such as Nouveau or Villages on the label. Next step up is Beaujolais Villages.

There are other light bodied reds. Italian Bardolino and Valpolicella are both widely available and easy to drink. Once you get used to these you can start branching out to other things.

You do not have to have a goal of liking merlot. You should not drink a wine because others have told you you should. You should not think there is only one wine to go with one food. There are lots of wines that go with steak, including Beaujolais. I prefer cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and syrah to merlot with steak.

The same is true with pasta. In addition to the wines mentioned above, there are dozens of other Italian wines including, Chianti, Barbera, Dolcetto, and Salice Salentino. If you have a sauce that is high in tomatoes, you want a wine that is high in acid such as those mentioned here.

Most of the merlot produced in the world is lousy, so don't feel bad about not liking it. Most of the one's I drink are from Pomerol and St Emilion in Bordeaux, and from the Collio region of Italy. The numbers of so called New World Merlots that I care for are very small. I recently posted a diatribe about Chilian Merlot that was "supposed" to taste like green peppers.

[This message has been edited by Innkeeper (edited 10-19-2001).]