GV: Great episode. Love the blind tasting. No surprise with the Duckhorn victory. Excellent producer. Can’t wait to visit them again.

QOTD:
Best – 2004 Darioush. Bought it at the winery, so that probably made it seemh better. I really like the Provenance Merlots too.
Worst – Clos Du Val. Probably worse Merlots out there, but this is not good for the price.

QOTD= Best-1997 Masseto Worst-2006 Blackbird( not terrible, but come on $80 F##cking dollars)

QOTD: Best merlot I’ve ever had – 1996 Shafer Merlot. Worst – Woodbridge, but that’s no surprise.

Have to now change my worst to agree with Oklahoma Michael. The Blackbird is one of the worst price/quality plays out there.

Merlot for me even before SW was as you’d say “the cutest girl in a 6 person town”. Great Merlot seems to always ends up tasting closer to Cab in its bigness usually because it has some Cab or Franc in it. e.g. QOTD: Blackbird is good but pricey. Best value is always, SPRING VALLEY, Uriah, Walla Walla Valley it never fails to outperform its price point.

I love the blind tastings, please keep em coming.

love you show. i have only been watching for a month or so and i have learned a lot. your show with heidi barrett it was assume. she is one classy lady.

about your merlot show, (yes i am one of those anti merlot people) what do think about white merlot? i have a bottle 2006 leonesse cellars white merlot temecula valley. i think it is great.

i am new to wine and want to have a wine party. but my friends no little about wine and have little money. what can i do with out spending a lot of money?
thank you

Blind Tastings and Guest episodes only would be epic.

Best: Flora Springs 1997 Windfall Merlot Reserve
Worst: big surprise – 2001 Montiano, Falesco

Merlot – not my glass of wine but loved the commentary. Keep it comming!

GV: Loved the show. Love Merlot. Please do all of your tastings blind. I feel the results are skewed when you know in advance what you are drinking.

Great show in spite of the poor performance of the wines. I couldn’t look away, it was kind of a like watching a car accident in slow motion. The expression on your face was devastated. Are wineries not putting as much work into their merlots since the market was so soft, or were these just a bad bunch? I’d really like to see another tasting of the corked wine from a good bottle.

To help save Merlots, please do another show with known value plays. If it’s indeed underpriced, find a few $12 – $20 bottles that score above 88 points.

It was perhaps the luck of the draw that of these six wines that only one stood out with high quality. One of them was corked… to be expected on occasion for sure. Who chooses the wines for your blind tastings? Is it someone on staff there at Wine Library who randomly selected six bottles of Merlot without regard for their potential of being noteworthy examples of the varietal? It would be interesting to know this aspect of how the blind tastings are done at WLTV.

The best merlot I have had, with great QPR, is Christian Moueix Merlot Bordeaux. It can be had for roughly $10 and I have not been disappointed with it. I say why drink merlot from California or Washington at higher prices if you can have a reasonable quality wine like this from France, all while saving some cash. Would anybody else agree with me on this??

Thanks for the blind tasting show, as once again they prove to be enjoyable – even if the wines tasted prove to be less than stellar.

ABM – anything but Merlot — that’s my thought. never saw the movie that said it.
QOTD: any Merlot isn’t to my palate. Not sure why.

This just means you will have to have another blind Merlot tasting!

Awkward is an understatement. Sounds like Ian doesn’t drink any F#$%^*
Merlot. Those choices were HORRIBLE! I mean c’mon Flying Fish? Why not put
a kangaroo bottle up there. Wash makes some tremendous Merlot
(Leonetti, Andrew Will) as does Cali (Chapellete, Keenan). Why not some
LI merlots which are very right bank (Walters Crest, Lenz).

QOTD: Worse I never remember nor do I want to. Best? Maybe Lenz 2005
old vines Merlot – very rustic, dusty with great red cherry fruit
and a long pleasantly tannic finish

I love the blind tastings. I watch your show all the time. I tend to notice that you favor “big name” wines with your scores when you are not blinded. By blinding, you keep it real.
Keep up the good work.
Leo

Thanks for evening out the teeter-totter and helping out our friend the downcast merlot. I agree that merlot can be a real bargain right now – similar to what was said a few days ago about shiraz.

Hi Gary, loved the show even though it was a train wreck…if anyone wants to see the better side of merlot check out Merlove, a doc about all kinds of producers to fight back against the sideways phenonema… Best merlot I had was La Frenz 2007 from the Naramata Bench in BC, CANADA. Worst could be any number of bad bottles “friends” brought to dinner parties, ecch.

Dismal tastings GV. Too bad but I still don’t like CA Merlot. Best I have had 1970 Cheval Blanc. Worst I had for the price was a Simi Merlot, just plain nasty and $20.

I’m sorry the wines were bad, but I still enjoyed the episode!

GV , you are keepin’ it real and that’s the only way to go…
I am still big on Merlo. as you said — great values out there curtesy of sideways – and I am FINE with that.

QOTD – Not sure it was the best, but outside of St. Emilion wines I really liked the 2005 Falesco Merlot from Umbria. One of the best QPRs ever on WLTV. The worst… can’t rememebr but an entry level coppola comes to mind as disjointed, fake and generally not fun (which would have been a great fit in today’s show…)

Why didn’t you include a Lenz Merlot from Long Island? Has it lost its panache since the ’80’s?

The Merlot show was wonderful. Good job and well done.

My wife and I continue to lurk and learn.

It would have been great if (as a finish to the show) you could have directed your viewers toward some very good and reasonably priced Merlot.