by Maggie Bernat Smith Merlot once ruled the wine scene as the go-to red in the 90's, everyone loved it whether it be from California, Bordeaux, or the wonderful Chilean Merlot. Its soft tannins and lush fruit driven characteristics made it an easy choice for your red wine drinking experience. However when a little movie came out by the name of Sideways, the wine world changed. Pinot Noir was discovered and Merlot was dumped. Pinot Noir sales have drastically risen steadily even still today and Merlot sales have fallen consistently.
There are clubs, blogs, and facebook fan pages about hating Merlot and at least once a day we hear "I'll drink anything but Merlot." It just goes to show when someone in Hollywood says what we should be drinking a certain beverage or Oprah says we should be reading certain books, the masses will follow and agree. It's your palate and it's your sense of what you like so how can Hollywood make that decision for you?
Ask Château Petrus what there opinion of Merlot is. Château Petrus is one of the most expensive and sought after wines in the world from Bordeaux France (and it's 95% Merlot), their current release price, if you can buy futures on it, is $3,000 per bottle. The Cheval Blanc (which is what Miles most prized wine was and drank at the end of his miserable journey) the blend is more then half Merlot and is currently $1,200 for the 2009 release. Few film reviewers have commented that Cheval Blanc is a blend of mostly Merlot and it's what made the movie so ironic.
The fact is when consumer demand is so high for a certain grape varietal, the quality goes down the tubes for wine. It's what happened to Merlot, it is what's now happening to Pinot Noir and happens for every other grape varietal as well. Grapes need to be tended to, cut back, only planted in certain climates where it will reach its full potential and when these huge corporations are pumping out wine the cheapest way they know how, quality suffers. If you buy wine at small shops like The Noble Grape, they take care to taste each wine, and yes taste a lot of Merlot, and everything else to make sure we get good quality, not the simple tuity-fruity ones that saturate the market.
Every Merlot tastes different just like every Pinot tastes different (some you like, some you don't). Try Washington State as a go-to Merlot, give it another shot, it has a completely different flavor profile then California. The Columbia Valley shares virtually the same latitude line as Bordeaux France and you get a more elegant and complex style of reds, especially Merlot. If you doubt me or you have Merlot-hating friends, try blind tasting them. Buy a bottle of Merlot, Pinot and Cabernet, all at similar price points, brown bag them and have them rate the wines and even see if they can guess the grape types. We do this in the wine industry all the time to sharpen up our palates and it's great fun too!
There are clubs, blogs, and facebook fan pages about hating Merlot and at least once a day we hear "I'll drink anything but Merlot." It just goes to show when someone in Hollywood says what we should be drinking a certain beverage or Oprah says we should be reading certain books, the masses will follow and agree. It's your palate and it's your sense of what you like so how can Hollywood make that decision for you?
Ask Château Petrus what there opinion of Merlot is. Château Petrus is one of the most expensive and sought after wines in the world from Bordeaux France (and it's 95% Merlot), their current release price, if you can buy futures on it, is $3,000 per bottle. The Cheval Blanc (which is what Miles most prized wine was and drank at the end of his miserable journey) the blend is more then half Merlot and is currently $1,200 for the 2009 release. Few film reviewers have commented that Cheval Blanc is a blend of mostly Merlot and it's what made the movie so ironic.
The fact is when consumer demand is so high for a certain grape varietal, the quality goes down the tubes for wine. It's what happened to Merlot, it is what's now happening to Pinot Noir and happens for every other grape varietal as well. Grapes need to be tended to, cut back, only planted in certain climates where it will reach its full potential and when these huge corporations are pumping out wine the cheapest way they know how, quality suffers. If you buy wine at small shops like The Noble Grape, they take care to taste each wine, and yes taste a lot of Merlot, and everything else to make sure we get good quality, not the simple tuity-fruity ones that saturate the market.
Every Merlot tastes different just like every Pinot tastes different (some you like, some you don't). Try Washington State as a go-to Merlot, give it another shot, it has a completely different flavor profile then California. The Columbia Valley shares virtually the same latitude line as Bordeaux France and you get a more elegant and complex style of reds, especially Merlot. If you doubt me or you have Merlot-hating friends, try blind tasting them. Buy a bottle of Merlot, Pinot and Cabernet, all at similar price points, brown bag them and have them rate the wines and even see if they can guess the grape types. We do this in the wine industry all the time to sharpen up our palates and it's great fun too!
No comments:
Post a Comment