Merlot and Pinot Noir are two of the world’s most popular grape varieties, and in many ways, they both represent the potential of red wine. In general, their flavors and mouthfeel tend to be diametrically opposed, so it’s interesting to consider them in the context of one another.
Julien Howsepian, winemaker at Kosta Browne, believes that for consumers, “Pinot Noir is the most exciting variety… Pinot Noirs from around the world vary so much from one another, and I find that both mysterious and fascinating.” He continues, “I think Pinot Noir alone can offer a lifetime of exploration through regional discovery, vineyard-specific expressions, and producer uniqueness. You can explore Pinot to your heart’s content, and I don’t think any other variety can do that.”
Burgundy is a great example of Pinot Noir’s multifaceted nature: for nearly a thousand years, the variety has been grown here, allowing its different expressions in adjacent plots to be mapped, studied, and ranked. While other great Pinot Noir regions, such as Oregon’s Willamette Valley and California’s Sonoma Coast, don’t have such a history, the understanding of how their many constituent terroirs influence the final wine is becoming more nuanced (and fascinating) every year.
Of course, Merlot can also reflect the world’s great terroirs; the famous clay holes at Château Petrus in Bordeaux’s Pomerol appellation produce one of the world’s most age-worthy and valuable wines. From the Right Bank to Rutherford, Merlot supporters around the world are very proud of this.
A great example is Sullivan Rutherford Estate, which produces outstanding Merlot in Napa Valley. “As producers, we face the challenge of Merlot,” explains General Manager Joshua Lowell. “It’s easy to make good Merlot. But it’s extremely difficult to make great Merlot – and that’s the mission of Sullivan Rutherford Estate. Great Merlot is a pure pleasure to drink. It’s rich and complex enough to trigger all the pleasure senses, but it’s also very delicate and sensual.”
Like all grape varieties, however, achieving this is a challenge. “Getting the right exposure is tricky in the vineyard. You need the fruit to get some sun because it helps thicken the skins, which is necessary to make a great, age-worthy Merlot. However, too much sun and heat can damage the grapes, reducing tannin quality… [color] and aromatic complexity,” he adds. In the winery, its inherent softness must be carefully managed: overusing new oak, using barrels from the wrong cooperage, extracting too much skin from the fruit—all of which can result in a Merlot that tastes too heavy and unbalanced.
“One of the key challenges is to plant and nurture our Merlot vineyards patiently and thoughtfully in the first place, ensuring the grapes are matched to the right soil and climate,” explains Pierre Seillan, viticulturist at Domaine Lasègue in Bordeaux and Domaine Vérité in Sonoma. “If grown on the wrong soils, or in an area that’s too hot, Merlot can have very high sugar levels, producing wines that are overripe and high in alcohol. On the other hand, if grown in the right soils in cooler growing zones, Merlot produces balanced, well-structured, complex and fine wines. Some of our top Merlot microvineyards are in the cooler Bennett Valley and Chalk Hill AVAs.”
Chris Carpenter, winemaker for La Jota, Mt. Brave and Hickinbotham, agrees. “If you look at some of the most popular and expensive wines in the world, like Petrus and Masseto, those are Merlot-based wines, and they’re fantastic,” he notes. “Those wines come from vines grown in the right place, with an ideal combination of climate, light and soil.” California’s prime appellations also have this magical combination of conditions. He adds that the Merlot grown and vinified there “has depth, complexity, minerality, and an ability to age similar to, but different from, Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s an underdog, and I love that underdogness and the challenge of helping to establish the prestige of these vineyards in Napa Valley.”
When it comes to Merlot, the prestige issue can’t be ignored, and Joshua Lowell sums it up nicely: “Merlot is highly regarded everywhere except in the United States. Most of the world’s most collected and expensive wines are Merlot. Yet most American consumers think Merlot means only simplicity, fruitiness, and low prices.” Not so with Sullivan’s top Merlot, JO Sullivan Founder’s Reserve, which is just as profound as JO Sullivan Founder’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and is priced the same. Carpenter’s Merlot-based wines hold the same pride of place in a wine collection as his highly acclaimed Cabs. La Muse by Vérité is a reliably profound expression of the variety vintage after vintage.
“More than most other Bordeaux varieties, [Merlot] can offer a smooth, gorgeous texture that is bright, pure, and full of character,” notes Renée Ary, winemaker at Duckhorn Vineyards. “At the same time, the best Merlots can have extraordinary structure and refinement. And, as you’ll see in our single-vineyard bottlings, most notably our estate Three Palms Vineyard Merlot, this grape can be incredibly terroir-driven and site-specific. As a winemaker and wine lover, Merlot has always been fascinating.”
The same is true for Pinot Noir. While both varieties have an extraordinary ability to express a sense of place, they also present unique challenges. “Pinot Noir is known for being extremely difficult to find the perfect balance in the vineyard and winery,” explains Evan Anderson, founder of VOON Wines in Sta. Rita Hills. “The grape’s thin skins and early ripening mean they are particularly susceptible to pests and diseases and can be damaged by early frosts, so they need to be managed very carefully, especially in an organic vineyard like VOON.”
He adds that picking time is crucial, as “picking a day early or a day late can have a big impact on the final wine. If the vintage is too hot, or the Pinot Noir grapes hang on the vine too long, the wine can taste ‘extracted’ – too much jammy fruit flavours… Balance is key in making all wines, [but] achieving the right balance of acidity, tannins, alcohol and flavour complexity can be trickier with Pinot Noir than with other grapes because it is so sensitive.”
Howsepian of Kosta Browne sees similar issues: “Pinot Noir is notoriously difficult to grow and is extremely susceptible to mildew, rot, overplanting and imbalanced vine vigor,” he notes. “This is partly because Pinot Noir is a cool-climate variety, and therefore difficult to grow grapes in based on conditions alone… Pinot Noir requires a great deal of canopy management, particularly leaf removal to optimize sun exposure and protection (depending on row orientation and sun exposure); leaf removal also optimizes air flow, allowing bunches and leaves to dry out after morning mists and occasional rainfall. The ‘fragile’ nature of the variety is due to the constant, gentle stress required to grow and vinify quality Pinot Noir.”
However, when planted in the right place and vinified with care and attention to every detail, its expressiveness is astonishing; this is what Claire Carver, co-founder of Big Table Farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, calls “its site transparency and pervasive variability.” Of her Pinot Noir portfolio, she notes that while her single-vineyard wines from Sunnyside and Cattrall Brothers Vineyards are planted with the same Pinot Noir clone, they produce “very different wines… one is more about dark fruit, the other more about earth and spice.”
The best Merlot can achieve this effect, too, though it gets less credit in this regard. Merlot also makes for an excellent blending partner, often playing a prominent role even when it’s not the main component of a wine. “In our Howell Mountain Hillside blend, the combination of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot is clearly greater than the sum of its parts,” notes Larry Tsai, winemaker and co-owner of Moone-Tsai Wines in Napa Valley. “More specifically, while the Cabernet Sauvignon from this first appellation makes for a structured standalone wine, the addition of Merlot adds notes of black cherry and spice, along with ‘softer acidity,’ which creates a delicious contrast to the Cabernet’s rich flavors, resulting in a rounder, easier-drinking mouthfeel.”
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