October Is Merlot Month With These Napa Valley Wines

Merlot is an often-time misunderstood and under appreciated grape. To help celebrate its history, versatility and brilliance, there is an entire month dedicated to it. October is Merlot Month with these Napa Valley wines from Markham Vineyard. Markham's Winemaker Kimberlee Nicholls often comes to Southwest Florida where her wines have a respected following. I've spent time with her on several visits and always enjoy trying her wines.

Nicholls is not a so-called wine prodigy. In fact, she originally had aspirations in the medical field on the east coast. Her science background provided a perfect platform for the science needed in winemaking. She was featured in a recent PBS documentary Vintage: Napa Valley 2012.  A camera crew followed Nicholls and two other well-established women winemakers through the stressful 2012 harvest in Napa Valley. It's a great film for wine aficionados to watch.

Nicholls was one of first female winemakers in Napa Valley. Today she leads a team of women winemakers and has a great love for merlot. Did you know merlot is the third most widely planted grape variety in Napa Valley? Here are three of Markham's that are worth looking for Wine Wednesday and any day.

Check out this short video. Here are a few more suggestions to celebrate Merlot Month. Tag your merlot drinking photos to social media with #Merlotme

We are raising a glass to Merlot Month today for Wine Wednesday. During  October, it seems Halloween is on the top of most our minds but it is also designated as #MerlotMe for wine lovers.

Merlot grapes makes some of the most expensive, most iconic wines in the world. They are not sweet, full of over-cooked fruit, or uninspiring as many people think. On the contrary, some of these wines will make a believer out of you.

I know this for a fact because of Longboard Merlot. It is one of the bottles I brought into the station when camping out for several days during Hurricane Ian's wrath. It is responsible for at least one merlot convert.

While grabbing a blanket, pillow, and toothbrush, my hurricane supplies also included numerous bottles of wine. I felt one brand was kind of poignant and talk about it in last week's Wine Wednesday post. In addition, I knew Merlot Month was right around the corner so I also grabbed a couple of those, strictly for research.

When one of my colleagues came into the studio and saw Longboard, he said suspiciously, "I don't normally like merlot, but I'll give it a try." I noticed he kept returning to fill his glass, nodding with approval, analyzing the bottle. "This is good," he said. He was all in.

So many people have had sub-par merlots poured in restaurants by the glass it turns them off. In addition, there was that little movie, "Sideways," that famously maligned the grape causing a backlash that is still lingering.

I asked a couple of my restaurant and wine friends why they love merlot so much. The story is out today in the Fort Myers NewsPress and Naples Daily News. You can read it here, however, they rave mostly about how good it is with food. They also talk about how sexy it can be. Sign me up for both of those things.

This was another merlot I brought into the studio during Hurricane Ian. It is from Red Mountain in Washington State.

It's this beautiful deep purple color and it has great fruit across the palate. A little toasty. I know the winery has some specials on this for #MerlotMe month. $50

Decoy is fairly easy to find and you can't go wrong with wines from here or Duckhorn. Follow the duck!

It's spicy plum flavors have me thinking about the upcoming holidays. The wine has dark fruit, warm spice on the finish and nice acid, good for foot. It's a good value at $25

Coming full circle here, that LongBoard Merlot that started this whole post is  from Dakine Vineyard in Sonoma's Russian River Valley. It has a touch of malbec in it which adds a little complexity. It has plums and dark chocolate and violets and it's delicious. Only 222 cases were made so you might have to search a little for it. $45