Merlot making merry madness

Wines & Vines, Jan, 1997 by Richard Paul Hinkle

Well, Merlot has grown up, it is sure being taken seriously (not only via the incessant demand of the marketplace), and we are now learning the lesson that Louis Martini taught us in the 1950s with Cabernet. If the wine is in balance when it's made, odds are good that it'll age well, no matter how lacking in heft, ethanol, oak or tannin. Something to do with mature fruit, harmony, and appropriate amplitude. Too basic? Uh huh. But funny how we have to continually reacquaint ourselves with that little lesson.

Last September, as '96's stop 'n' start vintage kept everyone guessing as to what calamity was coming up next, the folks at Charles Krug (organized brilliantly by Janice Mondavi) put on an exquisite retrospective of aging Merlots that opened some eyes to the ageability of this oft-misjudged varietal. Entitled "Merlot Madness," the 14-wine tasting was part of a benefit for the St. Helena Catholic School.

One of the evening's highlights was the very first varietal Merlot ever produced in California, a blend of 1968 and 1970 vintages bottled in 1972 by Louis Martini. Typically, the grand old man of subtlety mused that he could improve that wonderful old wine by blending in a touch here and a taste there of some of the younger wines sitting before him at the table. Of his own wine - which still displayed lovely pomegranate and black walnut fruit and an oily, inviting texture - he told me, "I'm amazed that the color is still holding so well. Remember, this wine was made in the old style: no maceration, aging in large casks, no small oak, the juice drawn off at six brix. The blend of the two vintages was nothing more than a practical measure. We didn't have much from the '68 vintage, and the fruit was a little green, anyway, and the '70 crop was a short crop year, too, due to extensive frost, and so that wine was a bit more robust."

Martini pointed out that his inspiration to bottle Merlot as a varietal came not from St.-Emilion or Pomerol, but rather from Switzerland. Switzerland? "Liz and I were visiting the late Paco and Romilda Gould at her family's home in Switzerland, and Paco brought out a twelve-year-old bottle of Swiss Merlot. Well, it was wonderful, and it got me to thinking that this grape that we had been using for blending with Cabernet might have some usefulness on its own. But we didn't want to make it like we were making the Cabernet. I mean, if you're going to make different varietals, why not make them so that they're different, right?" Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you.

Cary Gott, Sterling's president, presided over the pouring of that winery's 1979 vintage, from magnums. "This vintage was grown in our vineyard at Bale Lane, and the clone is most often referred to as the Three Palms clone," noted Gott. The wine was tangy with cranberry fruit and some typically Merlot hints of menthol. Light and elegant in weight, the fruit was still bright and lively, and went especially well with the grilled quail prepared by Tra Vigne's superb chef, Michael Chiarello. Two wines from the 1981 vintage were shown. That from Pine Ridge displayed sharply-defined bell pepper, fennel, anise, and a strong menthol component that bordered on the medicinal. (Far better was Pine Ridge's toasty '94 vintage, poured with dinner, that served as an ideal backdrop to Chiarello's scintillating, gooey chocolate dessert.) "Because of my Bordeaux background, we're not shy in blending in a little Cabernet franc and Malbec with the Merlot," noted owner Gary Andrus, who's busy these days flying his King Air back and forth to Oregon, where he has his newest winery venture, Archery Summit.

The second '81 poured was the Rutherford Hill. "This wine came from two vineyards, one at Oak Knoll, near Trefethen, the other in Rutherford, the Shaw Vineyard," informed managing director Jeff Jaeger. "Phil Baxter made this wine in his typical Michael Jordan style, which translates into lots of hang time for the fruit. What amazes me about these wines we're tasting, aside from how well they've aged, is how many different styles and dimensions they show. And the wines are only going to get better, as the second generation of California winemakers puts the grapes in the proper sites and on the proper rootstocks." Rutherford Hill's '81 expressed itself elegantly, with dusty orange peel aromas and soft, fluid bell pepper that extended nicely into the finish.

Always a soft and alluring wine, even from the day it is bottled, Clos Du Bois Merlot offers a classic example of how harmony ages well. The 1982 Clos Du Bois was one of the freshest, most beautifully crafted wines in a group that was rather elevated to begin with. The wine showed an earthy, sweet bell pepper nose, followed by bright tobacco that was soft, elegant and long, framed by just a hint of dill weed. "There's still an amazing amount of richness to this wine," exclaimed general manager Tom Hobart (himself a former winemaker). "This wine has about 20% Cabernet, and 1982 was a cool year, and this wine had huge amounts of jammy, ripe fruit when it was young." Still does, Tom. Still does.