Merlot

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This article is about the Merlot wine grape. For other meanings see Merlot (disambiguation).

Merlot is one of the noble wine grape varieties, used to create a popular red wine. Merlot-based wines usually have medium body with hints of berry, plum, and currant. Its softness and "fleshiness", combined with its earlier ripening, makes Merlot an ideal grape to blend with the sterner, later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon. For the last decade or so, many Merlots have been made in a style that has become popular with newer, less experienced red wine drinkers (though good Merlots accompanying appropriate food are popular with many more experienced wine drinkers, as well). This flexibility has helped to make it one of the most popular red wine varietals in the United States.^[1]

Merlot is produced primarily in France, Italy and California, and on a lesser scale in Australia, Argentina, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, and other parts of the United States. Most wines from Bordeaux contain at least some Merlot, and in the regions of Pomerol and Saint-Emilion it is not unusual for Merlot to comprise the majority of the blend. One of the most famous and rare wines in the world, Château Pétrus, is almost all Merlot.

White Merlot is made the same way as its more famous cousin, White Zinfandel. The grapes are crushed, and after very brief or even no skin contact, the resulting pink must ferments. Some producers of White Merlot include Sutter Home, Forest Glen, and Beringer. It normally has a hint of raspberry flavor. White Merlot was reputedly first marketed in the late 1990s.

Until 1993, the Chilean wine industry mistakenly sold a large quantity of wine made from the Carmenere grape as Merlot. In that year, genetic studies discovered that much of what had been grown as Merlot was actually Carmenere, an old French variety that had gone largely extinct in France due to its poor resistance to phylloxera, which as of 2006 does not exist in Chile.

Merlot was memorably mocked by a main character in the film Sideways who encouraged people to drink Pinot Noir instead.

[edit] References

1. ^ Wine Business Journal listing of varietal sales..