2016 Wente Sandstone Merlot

 


2016 Wente Sandstone Merlot


Vintage: 2016
Region: Livermore Valley, California, USA
Winery: Wente
Varieties: 78% Merlot, 15% Petite Sirah, 7% Malbec
Price: $13 (Should be able to find everywhere, but I found at Wegmans)
Rating: 90 Points
My Rating: 92 Points

The Review: One of my favorite weird wine stories to tell people is related to Merlot. In the movie "Sideways," Paul Giamatti's character at one point yells, "I am NOT drinking any f****** Merlot!" After the movie came out, market analysts actually found that sales of Merlot in the US notably dropped and have only just recently started to rebound. It got to be so bad, in fact, that many producers would make wines that had a majority Merlot and throw in a touch of something else, then label it as a "red blend."

Merlot has always been pretty respected (at least in the wine world). It's one of the major grapes in world-famous Bordeaux wines and has high potential and high versatility. That's both a blessing and a curse because as we often see with Chardonnay (another versatile grape), it can be used a lot in not so great wines. In these scenarios, Merlots are often fruit bombs that are one-dimensional. So, after already having a slight reputation for being not good, "Sideways" really was the icing on the cake.

But thankfully like all things that go out of style, hipsters bring them back and Merlot is back on the rise. The 2016 Wente Sandstone Merlot is a great example of a more traditional, French-style Merlot. These styles show a great balance of fruit and some oak notes and have a nice depth to them. And as a bonus, Wente's vineyards are certified sustainable.

The wine presents nice notes of blackberry, plum, and cherry on the nose, with some more subtle vanilla, cedar, and baking spice that come from oak aging. The taste shows more red fruits than the nose, with notes of cherry, plum, red currant, and tart raspberry as well as a touch of blackberry (from the tiny amount of Petite Sirah and Malbec). The fruity notes were wrapped nicely around notes of tobacco, baking spice, and some cedar. There's a warm, long finish, and I was impressed by the structure and depth for the price. The fruit was bright and fresh, but was nicely balanced by some of the oak notes.

Overall, this one was quite a find and is one of the better Merlots I've had. I think this is a great way to taste that traditional style of Merlot I mentioned, and hopefully, you'll accept that Merlot is in fact good (sometimes).

drink what you like,

db

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