I wonder why there is still some misunderstanding about the wonderful red wine grape Merlot. I think that this worldly and elegant wine was so bashed by Paul Giamatti that it might take a generation for Merlot to get “up to speed” and grab its rightful place, once again, in winedom.
Here is what we know about wine made from Merlot:
First, let me give you a very brief history of red and white wine production in California. Many of the “big oak” Cabernet Sauvignon produced in California in the late 1960s until the middle 1980s suffered from being way overdone and the wine production message in the state was “more is better” in just about all of the winemaking during these 25 years.
Oak, skin contact and pressing was dominant in the minds and cellars of many winemakers at that time. Even the Chardonnays were suffering from over extraction and hideous amounts of oak. It got so bad in the middle 1970s that I remember a “blind” tasting of white wine (all of which turned out to be Chardonnay) where none of the judges could tell what the wines were because the heavy-handed use of oak in the production masked the varietal!