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A couple from the Napa, a New Zealand example (a superb Fromm ‘La Strada’) and a number of the better Australians of the day – Mt Mary, Oakridge, Heggies, Pikes, Clarendon Hills and Irvine.Īmong the French Merlots, or Merlot-dominant wines, were several from the perhaps underwhelming 1994 vintage – Ausone, Madelaine and Trotanoy, as well as the 1982 Vieux Chateau Certan, a great year. The night kicked off with a couple of Sparkling Merlots, nuff said, before we moved to Chilean, bargain Italian, and even an impressive South African Merlot. June 1998 (as one might imagine, I have a lot of old notebooks and boxes galore). Miraculously, I found the relevant notebook.

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A wine like Petrus is almost 100% Merlot – usually it might include a dollop of Cabernet Franc.Īnyway, these memories meant it was time to rummage around in the old boxes full of notes. St Émilion is planted to around 60% Merlot while Petrus is 80%. We knew Petrus would be included and a few other Merlot dominant top Bordeaux – the Right Bank. The plan was a dinner, with three flights of the world’s best, six each bracket, and served blind.

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If we return to the late 90s, a local fine wine retailer would hold a series of great wine events and dinners (we all know the sort of thing – wine lovers hold them all around the globe), and decided to explore the great Merlots. Merlot in general has certainly made somewhat of a comeback, but it is the great Merlots that are of interest to us here.

While it has made a comeback, it has never quite readjusted its halo to sit as it once did. Humanity is very strange at times.Īt the time, Merlot was 20% of California’s red wine market. Because of the thoughts of a fictional character. His disdain for the grape took off like wildfire and sales plummeted. Right in the middle of the Merlot boom, around 2004, along came a small and rather enjoyable film, Sideways, where Paul Giamatti (one of the actors, who played a wine-snobbish, struggling author) declares he is not drinking any more Merlot, though he is perhaps a little more forceful than that. In both countries, it was originally mistaken for other varieties, which did not encourage sales.Īnd then there was the Sideways Effect. Carmenere was later found in both Italy and Chile. After the devastation of phylloxera, many thought it extinct and no one was replanting it. It turned out that apparently a fair whack of what the American public was buying as Chilean Merlot was actually a grape called Carmenere, which originated in Bordeaux and was used as a minor blending variety only.