Lot 46 2024 Napa Valley Merlot 750ml

Lot 46 is six-barrels of fantastic 2024 Napa Valley Merlot hailing from the same producer as Lot 47 Cabernet Sauvignon, a notable high-elevation, estate program up in the area known as Pritchard Hill. 

This is a first run, ultra-premium blending component from a well-over $250/bottle program; however, I cannot say for sure whether it was inventory reduction or it just didn't fit into the blend. Regardless, it's a fantastic, amazingly complex and ethereal wine and an absolute steal at $25/bottle!

Our plan it to keep the wine in barrel through January and bottle in February...as I mentioned in the email, the 24's are ripe and relatively open knit and we do not feel the wine needs to stay in barrel any longer. However, I do suspect this wine will take some time to come around in the bottle.

Deep garnet in the glass with an opaque core verging on on inky. The bouquet is ethereal and tightly wound with hints of sage, black cherry, blueberry jam, and cocoa powder underpinned with toasty black earth and dark chocolate. Purple florals and iron/rock notes complex the bouquet but, at the end of the day, this wine is just a baby...there is so much more to come. Linear on entry and powerfully-yet-ethereally structured showing the elevation and hinting at all the complexity to come. Fairly impenetrable on the palate, with hints of black and blue fruit wrapped around a chewy ball of minerally mountain tannin that unfurls a huge finish that lingers like a ghost on your palate...you know its there but its largely just an apparition or "impression" at this point. The structure is extremely promising and the long "baby fat" finish is just a hint of things to come...patience will be required with this one!

100% Napa Valley Merlot, 100% estate grown and produced. 
100% new French oak
14.5% alc, pH 3.8, TA 4.33 g/L