Merlot Wine

Merlot is a medium bodied red wine grape used for both blending and as a varietal. As an early ripener Merlot is an ideal grape to blend with the later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon. The Merlot variety is a fairly vigorous vine but it does suffer from both shatter and over-cropping. Merlot grapes do not have the blue/black hue of Cabernet Sauvignon and are thinner skinned with less tannin, as well as having more sugar. In general Merlot enjoys cold, clayey soil, though its early budding puts it at risk of frosts, while its thin skin makes it susceptible to rot.

The fact that Merlot will usually ripen up to two weeks earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon makes it what is known as a good ‘insurance variety’. Meaning you can be assured of the early crop if the later ripeners prove liable to damage from harvest rains or other factors. That is if the Merlot itself has not been affected by spring frost. However, once it begins to ripen the Merlot completes its ripening very quickly.

Merlot is the most planted grape in the entire Bordeaux region and comes only after Carignan and Grenache in all of France. Despite this widespread growth, it is nearly always blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Merlot is also used in the wines of the Pomerol district, such as the famous Château Petrus, in which over 90% Merlot is used.

Those tireless scientists of the University of California, Davis and their DNA tests have determined that Merlot is derived from Cabernet Franc. The name Merlot comes from a local dialect word ‘merlot’, meaning ‘blackbird’, though it is not known if this refers to the blackbirds who like to eat the grapes or to the beautiful dark-blue colour of the grapes themselves. Merlot as a variety was first recorded in 1784 as the best wine of its region and soon after was a common vine found in the Gironde district.

Today Merlot is popular not only in France but also in Italy and California, as well as such places as Romania Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Hungary. In Hungary, Merlot is made into varietal wine known as Egri Médoc Noir, a sweet tasting wine. In California, Merlot is often used to make a varietal wine, while in Chile, until relatively recently, much wine was sold as Merlot that DNA research has now established was in fact the Carmenere grape. The Chileans had believed this was a Merlot clone. Instead, Carmenere is a variety that was nearly wiped out in France by phylloxera and is only very distantly related to Merlot.

Merlot is grown in most wine regions of Australia. In the Riverina and Murray Valley, for example, it is grown as a mass product for the export market. But from a quality perspective the best Merlot is perhaps found in the Adelaide Hills and Eden Valley wine regions of South Australia, the Orange wine region of NSW, as well as in Western Australia.

An outstanding example of a South Australian Merlot is that of Zema Estate in the Coonawarra wine region and its Merlot 2004. Zema Estate has a winemaking history that goes back to the nineteenth century and employs a traditional approach to winemaking that can be seen to have paid off handsomely with this vintage. Mechanical pruning, and irrigation are not used, instead dry viticulture and hand pruning are practised to produce intense, rich fruit. This Merlot is made from fruit crushed and fermented for seven days and matured in oak casks for 16 months to produce a well balanced wine that can be drunk immediately, but also one that will improve with ageing.

Another great Merlot varietal, this time from New South Wales, is the Yellow Tail Merlot 2006 from Casella Wines of the Riverina wine region. Produced for the general market, the Yellow Tail Merlot is a wine designed for immediate consumption and enjoyment. It goes well with lamb, roast poultry, or most Italian cuisine. Casella Wines itself is the family owned winery of Filippo and Maria Casella who have used the image of the Yellow Tail Rock Wallaby drawn in the traditional ‘x-ray’ style to highlight their many fine vintages.

Often blended, Merlot loses nothing of its fine qualities in Dragon Cabernet Merlot produced by the Xanadu vineyards of the Margaret River wine region of Western Australia. Made from fruit crushed with open rollers that allow whole berries to enter into the fermentation, this is a wine whose complexity will definitely improve with bottle age.

Xanadu was founded by John Lagan in 1968, who early saw the great winemaking potential of the Margaret River region. The Xanadu estate was therefore a pioneer winemaker in this region, producing many intensely flavoured wines over the years. The cool nights and warm days enable Xanadu to develop their Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to perfection.

In recent years plantings of the Merlot variety have taken off around the globe, with California, South America, Italy, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia all participating. In American in particular, Merlot has become the new ‘Burgundy’ with some 2,000 acres planted in the 1980s now becoming more than 60,000 acres. In Australia, Merlot is now one of the most significant red varieties, still being produced behind Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon; there has nevertheless been a dramatic increase in plantings.