2007 TRÉ Cellars California Merlot

Modern ‘Market Merlot Makes Mark

I’m trying out a few new things here, as a milestone approaches.1 What milestone? A question best answered tomorrow, but in the meantime I have a supermarket merlot to tell you about.

This is the fourth in a series of four wines I received from a PR firm on behalf of TRÉ Cellars. The first three were a mixed bag, with the cab and syrah finding no sanctuary here, but the chardonnay surprising me quite a bit by being downright good. And now we come to the end.

And now we come to the merlot.

Do I have to go into it? Do I have to describe my general feelings about merlot? Must I quote Sideways for the like thousandth time? Well, to be honest—no, no I don’t. Why?

Because this stuff is pretty good.

Will it blow you away? No. If you really can’t stand merlot, will you love this? No. But if instead of having a verifiable hate for the grape, you simply don’t come across many merlots that are all that yummy these days, this might be one for you to try. And at approximately a Hamilton, the experiment won’t hurt if it doesn’t work out.

So, the wine? A bright ruby red at its core, it does tan slightly to the edges. Doesn’t turn brown or anything, but the lightening to the edges is not wholly red. The nose is pleasant, perhaps inherently so, with notes of raspberry bush and bright cherry, and just a hint of dried herbs.2

The palate, too, is pleasant,3 and features notes of raspberry and rhubarb. The TRÉ Merlot is medium-bodied, and pretty easy drinking for a merlot. Very New World-ish.4

All in all, another TRÉ that is easy for me to recommend. Should be available at your local supermarket.5

Verdict: B-

(full disclosure: I received this bottle as a press sample from Folsom & Associates)

2007 TRE Cellars California Merlot

2007 TRE Cellars California Merlot

Footnotes

  1. Between the alliteration in the headlines, and the use of footnotes, I hope people don’t start to think of me as affected. I also hope I can keep coming up with alliterations ↩
  2. The specific herb, however, I couldn’t quite place. My bad. ↩
  3. Though uninspiring. ↩
  4. Or, y’know, modern. ↩
  5. But then again, maybe not. ↩

2007 Leviathan

Color Me Converted

Statue of Bacchus

Ah, the “Napa Cult Wine.” The perennially-overpriced subject of scorn and ridicule the internet over. Everyone’s tired of Napa fruit and paying the Napa markup. There’s nothing new under the sun, everyone out there is overrated anyway, so forth and so on and et cetera ad nauseum.

Anyone from Napa still reading? I think all that’s horsehockey, by the way. Just wanted to get everyone on the same page.

Still, of the Napa Cult Wines I’ve had, the 2007 Leviathan is the first one to truly live up to all the hype. And what hype there is for this wine!

Some background: Leviathan is a garage wine project from husband-and-wife duo, winemaker Andy Erickson (Screaming Eagle, Staglin, Hartwell, Favia, Ovid, Dancing Hares, Jonata, Dalla Valle, Arietta) and viticulturalist Anie Favia (Screaming Eagle, Favia, and Abreu). Erickson has an MS in Enology from UC Davis, and cut his teeth in the 1990s at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

The Napa pedigree on these two is second-to-none. So what about the wine?

40% cabernet franc, 30% cabernet sauvignon, 16% syrah, and 14% merlot, all Napa juice. It’s maybe the best red blend I’ve had. Ever.

In the glass, the wine is gorgeous, with a brilliant garnet core and only slightly lighter ruby edges. On the nose is some really awesome fruit, like blackcurrant, raspberry, and ripe red cherry, but it’s all muted and held in check by a bit of nutmeg and allspice.

This is as full-bodied as wine gets, without getting sickly sweet and syrupy like dessert wine. The tannins are soft and lush, and everything here is in such balance, that I didn’t notice any of the heat. And at 14.5%, I was expecting it. Blackberry and raspberry are the main notes on the palate, and the wine does remain fantasically fruity.

If you’re an anti-flavor fascist, you won’t care for this wine. But if you still love juice for being juice (even if only sometimes) then you need to try this. It isn’t even that expensive, available for $40–$50 from numerous online retailers. Sure, that’s no drop in the bucket, but this isn’t an “everyday” drinker. The tannins and balance lead me to believe you could easily get 5+ years of aging out of it if you wanted, but it tastes so fucking good right now, I wouldn’t bother.

I’m a convert to the cult of Leviathan. This is crazy, silly good juice.

Verdict: 97/100

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamjodh/ / CC BY 2.0)

This Wine + More Time = Amazing Meritage

2006 Ferrari-Carano Tresor

The barrel room at Ferrari-Carano

Back to beautiful Ferrari-Carano.

As I mentioned in my review of their Eldorado Gold dessert wine, Ferrari-Carano is a pretty spectacular place. Visually stunning, physically impressive, it even smells good there.

One of the wines that Philippe sent my way, and for which I was grateful (not all of them were all that good, to be quite Francis about it) was this one: Their Tresor, a Meritage blend.

I never know whether to call these Meritages, Clarets, or “Bordeaux-style” blends. I know better than to actually call them Bordeaux, the sin of geographical fraudulence weighs heavy. The English call them Clarets, Californians tend to say Meritages. So I guess I should go with the latter.

If you didn’t pull it all out of there, what this all boils down to (my friend) is that the 2006 Ferrari-Carano Tresor is made up of cabernet sauvignon (79%), malbec (9%), merlot (5%), petit verdot (5%), and cabernet franc (2%).

The wine’s color is very dark, almost, though not quite, nebbiolo dark, with an almost-black core that lightens to ruby red edges. The Tresor’s nose is quite interesting: wet stone and earth mingle with anise and blackcurrant and just a hint of stinky barnyard, kind of a horse blanket aroma. Subtle, though.

The wine is full-bodied and tannic, with a big big structure. The alcohol needs time to soften the tannins, I think, and right now isn’t really the time to be drinking this wine. The notes here are fairly lacking in fruit, with most of the bouquet featuring pepper and more earthy aromas.

It’s gonna be a good one in a few years, I think… but 2010 might be just a bit early to be drinking the 2006 Tresor. It was released just last September, and needs some bottle time. The Tresor can be found in the $40-$50 range and will be well worth it in two or three years, but right now, it’s just a bit immature.

Verdict: B+ (with the hope I taste it again in 2013 or so)

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elcapitan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)