Oh yes you are Paul Giamatti from "Sideways".
eewwww spit-bucket...chug chug chug!!
Apparently his character's remarks in the film Sideways took a chunk out of the U.S. merlot market for a while. Because of course when a fictional character in a fictional movie says something about something you don't know about, it must be true: Merlot sucks, pinot noir is awesome.
The big irony of the movie is that his treasured bottle of Cheval Blanc '61 that he guzzles down in a styrofoam cup while eating onion rings is about half merlot.
Personally I've had just as many over-priced, underwhelming pinot noirs as I have cheap, flabby merlots.
But better to be disappointed on a $12 bottle than a $40 bottle.
Comparing different wines made from different varieties of grapes is silly anyway. Even though they all are made from grapes, different grapes make very different wines. You wouldn't compare a Corona with a Chimay. You would be better to compare a Corona with a Sol and Chimay with God's sweat.
On one hand, merlot is a wine that people who don't really drink wine drink. It's often sweet, juicy, smooth and utterly glugable. On the other hand it's a wine that many wine-lovers don't drink because it's often sweet, juicy, smooth and utterly glugable. When I think of merlot I think of the ever-present magnum of inexpensive Chilean wine my mom has on her kitchen counter (Santa Carolina I believe). Ostensibly her weeks worth. Sheeahh right. Always tastes too sweet for me.
There was a "60 Minutes" episode about 20 years ago called "The French Paradox" which discussed the (somewhat dubious) assertion that the French are healthier than "us" in spite of their high fat diet. The theory was perhaps because they also drink a lot of red wine maybe it somehow cancels out the bad effects of the butter and duck fat.
God, I hope so.
Conflicting evidence or not, at the time a lot of fat-assed Americans and Canadians with high hopes of canceling out all those Big Macs and Cheese-Doodles rushed out to the wine shops and demanded a bottle of easy to drink red wine for medicinal reasons.
That red wine was merlot.
Fat, juicy, fruity, fun, gregarious ... merlot at it's best can can be this:
But most of the time it's this:
The Liberace impersonator:
Eliciting polite applause for 35 years.
...still fat, juicy, fruity and gregarious...but only an impression of greatness.
My favorite merlot-based wines come from the 'right-bank' of Bordeaux, France such as the Saint-Émilion or Pomerol regions, usually they have some cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc blended in as well. 'Left-bank' wines, like from Medoc, are predominately cabernet sauvignon-based and tend to be more austere and require longer aging.
In many cases, like in Bordeaux, merlot is just part of the blend. It mixes well with cabernet sauvignon, adding a fleshy mid-palate fatness that the cabernet on it's own sometimes lacks.
And lest anyone think that merlot is an inferior grape look no further than Chateau Petrus (peh-troos')..it's around 95% merlot and is one the most expensive wines in the world and lasts for a generation or more:
But here's a few regular ol' merlots that are perfectly yummy...The first 2 I'd score in the mid-80's, good drinking wines, the third one is particularly good: 88+.
Marcus James Merlot, Argentina $10, Also good wine at a good price.
Casa Lapostelle Merlot, Chile $17. Really good. More complex and tannic than the others, decant it for an hour or so. A good food wine. Has the structure to cellar for at least 5 or even 10 years!
I've never tasted Cheval Blanc but I have tasted it's baby brother, the second wine of Cheval Blanc, "Le Petit Cheval 2005" ( $209 @ LCBO) which is a blend of merlot and cabernet franc.
I gave it an 88-90+...not much higher than the $17 bottle above....hardly 12 times better. Though to be fair it needed a few more years in the bottle or some vigourous decanting, The taste I had was right out of a newly opened bottle.
The price of a bottle of wine reflects it's quality, it's pedigree, it's rarity and it's hype...but that doesn't mean you'll like it.
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