Happy Merlot Day! This week‘s Wine of the Week series will honour to this day, as International Merlot Day is the 7th of November every year. I thought, this occasion is a perfect excuse to talk a little bit more about one of the most planted red variety and show a beautiful example from an unexpected country, Hungary.
Let`s start with Merlot itself, shall we?
In the late 1990s, researchers at University of California, showed that Merlot is an offspring of Cabernet Franc and is a half-sibling of Carménère, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. The identity of the second parent of Merlot wouldn’t be discovered till the late 2000s when an obscure and unnamed variety, first sampled in 1996 from vines growing in an abandoned vineyard in Saint-Suliac in Brittany, was shown by DNA analysis to be the mother of Merlot.
Merlot is a dark blue–coloured wine grape variety, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. Its softness and “fleshiness”, combined with its earlier ripening, makes Merlot a popular grape for blending with the sterner, later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon, which tends to be higher in tannin. The most famous region that uses this blend between the two variety is Bordeaux. However, Merlot is planted all over the World and we can find most likely two main styles.
The “International style” favoured by many New World wine regions tends to emphasize late harvesting to gain physiological ripeness and produce inky, purple-coloured wines that are full in body with high alcohol and lush, velvety tannins with intense, plum and blackberry fruit. While this international style is practiced by many Bordeaux wine producers, the traditional “Bordeaux style” of Merlot involves harvesting Merlot earlier. This maintains the acidity and produces more medium-bodied wines with moderate alcohol levels that have fresh, red fruit flavours (raspberries, strawberries) and potentially leafy, vegetal notes.
How I celebrate Merlot Day?
With a more International Style example from the region of Szekszárd in Hungary. Szeles-hát is a single vineyard winery, therefore it has its own microclimate. These southern faced slopes warming up easily because it is located between the Hungarian Great-Plain and the Geresd hillside. There´s constant wind on the top of Szeles-hát because the hot dry air from the Great-Plain mixed with the cool air from the hillside area. Szeles-hát means in Hungarian „windy hilltop”. Every part of Szeles-hát is in the best official vineyard category.
Nomád
The wine I have chosen from them called Nomád made from 100% Merlot grapes. This wine was selected last year in the Winelovers Top 100 Hungarian wines competition as one of the best Merlot in the country right now. It is a Merlot selection only made in extraordinary vintages. The fully ripe grape was harvested, then the wine was aged for 12 months in new Hungarian oak barrique barrels. They made a very limited amount of bottled wined. The name „Nomad” is referring to the importance of finding home.
I have tasted the 2017 vintage, the exact same one that was chosen in this competition. The wine is aromatic and juicy, full of black and red fruit-character, cherry, cranberry, smoke and vanilla. Still kept its high acidity and high, but well-integrated alcohol. It has a very smooth, medium plus tannin structure and a long-lasting finish. An excellent quality wine, in my opinion that deserves much more recognition.
Conclusion
I would love to see people drinking more red wine from Hungary and when you are browsing for the right bottle, don´t forget Szekszárd, an underrated region with top class mainly red wines! Did you know that you can find Bull´s Blood here too?
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