Merlot: The Amicable

Learn About Merlot

Fruit-forward and easy drinking, you make a great wine for beginners, Merlot. Your low acidity makes you soft on the palate. But that’s not to say you can’t be bold and jammy, complex or tannic for that matter. Though your tannin levels are never overpowering. You’ve got lots of dark fruits and dark spices in your portfolio of flavors and you are one of the smoothest red wines out there. That’s your appeal on a broad scale, Merlot, making you a very user-friendly wine

Like your cousin, Cabernet Sauvignon you are a Bordeaux native and can exhibit vegetable characteristics when grown in too cool of a climate. Green beans is not an uncommon trait in this instance. At your best you are a fruit bomb with high sugars.

You prefer to bud early and this makes you susceptible to frost, yet you counter this by ripening early. A sensitive grape, your thin skin makes you prone to rot and you can lose acidity in a snap in too warm an environment. You’re kind of a high maintenance wine variety come to think of it, Merlot.

In your homeland of Bordeaux you take root in clay but never truly get to express yourself, as Cabernet Sauvignon is given precedence to choice soils. A blending grape, you are the most widely planted wine grape in the area. You only show real worth in Pomerol and St Emilion, however.

In the New World, you thrive in warm climates and produce some powerful red wines. Juicy, quaffing red wines. Yummy in your tummy red wines. Plums, dark cherries, blueberries and blackberries dominate your aromas.

Having low acidity, few tannins, being fruit heavy and not running very deeply pigmented, you are rich jammy suppleness and style, Merlot. You have achieved a quick popularity. Having been propped up by the French Paradox theory, your rising appeal can be attributed to the health benefits red wine imparts on a person’s heart.

You are an easy wine to say. You have an approachable style. You are a sensation in the world of wine, Merlot. But because of this you have been rushed to production by New World winemakers capitalizing on your easy quaffing nature, and this has made you a lighter-bodied red wine than you are meant to be. On a lighter note, however, you have been in the spotlight for well over a decade now and your vines, having aged properly, are again producing the mature fruit that once brought you stardom.


Varietal Styles

    Light-Bodied
  • Fruity, Grapey
  • Soft Tannins
  • Supple
  • A Drink Now Red
    Full-Bodied
  • Dense
  • High Tannins
  • Chewy, Jammy
  • Age Worthy

Grape Styles
Blueberry | Plum | Blackberry | Red Cherry | Black Cherry | Grapey | Mint Chocolate | Cocoa | Cigar Box | Spice | Vanilla | Toffee | Coffee | Prune | Caramel

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