Wine Club Insider back with you.

Just got back from a triathlon club meeting… I’m aiming for a 70.3 (1/2 Ironman) in a couple of months, and was actually presenting some stuff tonight… great fun, good fitness, and it justifies the wine as a “training aide…”

It’s coincidental that we’re talking about Merlot today… I got to try the VERY nice 1999 Willard Family Merlot from Caterina Winery - www.caterinawinery.com - that I mentioned last week… it was even better than the last time I tasted it a year or so ago, and looks to have another 5 years or so until its prime… wow, what a nice wine!

Merlot is the other Grand Daddy of red wine grapes, or should I say “Grand Pere?” The other key Bordeaux grape, it is also, like Cab Sauv, an offspring of Cab Franc, and predates the Cab Sauv by a few years.

Merlot is a more medium bodied wine, and ripens earlier than Cab Sauv. It also blends very well, making it uber-popular with wine makers world wide.

The movie “Sideways,” for all its quirky charm, and heaped with blessings from the Pinot Noir industry, did many wine drinkers world wide with lead character Paul Giamatti’s irrational dislike for Merlot. One of the bits of ironic humor was in the final scene when he sits at the table in the diner to drink his treasured bottle of French Bordeaux… which ends up being a Merlot!

Yes, two of the world’s most famous, rare and expensive wines are both close to 100% Merlot…  Petrus (around $3000/bottle for futures) and Le Pin (even more than that!) are both Merlots.

Merlot is also going to be the number one red wine grape (again) by the end of 2009, it looks like, surpassing Cab Sauv.

Merlot is often used to add body and softness to the oft-harsher Cab Sauv, and is grown most everywhere Cab Sauv is, though tends to do better in the cooler areas of the AVAs where it doesn’t ripen quite so early. It is the largest varietal in France, and is becoming more and more popular world wide. In the USA, it is hugely popular in Napa, and is making greater inroads in the Pacific Northwest, where wineries such as Leonetti, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Isenhower, and yes, Caterina are making notable and praiseworthy wines.

Myself, I love it. A great Merlot is a joy to drink… softer somehow than other reds, often “fleshy,” and filled with flavors of currant and plum, two of my favorite tastes in wine.

So, put whatever prejudices you might have aside, and take up a glass of good Merlot and join the rest of the world in appreciating this grand old grape! There might even be a Merlot wine club out there somewhere… hmmm…

Back tomorrow with Cab Franc, another of my favorites!

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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WCI back to regale you with an evening of some of the best reds I’ve had in a long while…

As soon as we finished our salads, Don Townshend of Townshend Cellars (www.townshendcellar.com) started pouring. Nothing like starting with the Big Boys, so we poured Don’s acclaimed ‘00 Cabernet Sauvignon, and my first contribution to the evening, a St. Supery 2000 Dollarhide Ranch Cabernet. (www.stsupery.com)

These were some huge wines! The St. Supery was a bit softer but still had a ton of fruit, while the Townshend was huge… a bit more acidic, as is Don’s tendency, but easily worthy of another decade in the bottle. The five of us began our informal, highly subjective judging, and declared it a tie, with a caveat that we would taste again in a half hour or so.

We’d barely finished our first tastes of those when he poured his 2000 Cabernet Franc. It was one of the biggest wines I’ve had in years. It was a giant, and leapt into the running for the evening’s top wines. I love Cab Francs, but have had some disappointing ones as well, so it was a great surprise.

Now, we were using an air breather by “Air au Vin,” (www.airbreather.com) that breathes air into either a bottle or a glass of wine, equalling about an hour of decanting in about 30 seconds. We were able to “taste test” the new wines fresh from the bottle, and then airate them and taste them again; it makes a real difference.

Don then opened a second Cab Franc, this time a  1999 L’ Ecosse from California, that he had bought a case of years ago. On any other evening, it would have been a star, but while tasty, didn’t stack up to the Townshend Cab Franc.

Finally, he opened his 1999 Merlot. This is a Monster wine. As many of you likely remember, after the movie “Sideways,” Merlot sales fell, while Pinot sales climbed, and people kind of went off Merlot. I think it’s kind of ironic, since two of the most acclaimed, expensive and rare wines in the world are Merlots… yup, Chateau Petrus and Le Pin are both Merlots. I think Sideways did wine drinkers disservice, because with a wine like this, people are missing out! It is easily one of the best Merlots I have ever had, and Don said it might be one of his top two or three best wines he’s ever made, along with his Late Harvest Chenin Blanc, and his 95 Reserve Cab… Legacy wines.

I haven’t even got to tell you about dinner yet, so I guess I’ll be back to finish the story tomorrow!

Cheers,

WCI

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