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Wine Recommendation
Merryvale Vineyards
2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Starmont(Napa Valley)
Merryvale seems to have successfully engineered its escape from Napa Valley’s version of the “fighting varietal” market – average-quality wines selling for $30-40. Instead the winery is moving both up-market and down-market, so that its best wines can compete at $75 to $100 and its lower-priced “Starmont” wines are a good value at $17 to $27. Two keys to the strategy are winemaker Sean Foster and vineyard operations manager Remi Cohen.
Their success can be sampled in this wine, a deceptively impressive Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon selling for around $25. It opens with a stately aroma set of mixed red and black fruit, dry earth, baking spices and light toast. All the aromas continue as flavors. The wine layers in fine tannins, integrates its oak smoothly, and gets a liveliness out of the acid that doesn't interfere with the plumpness of the body or velvet quality of the texture. The wine continues expanding to the finish, when the initial aromas reprise. If you want to put Napa Cabernet on your table that makes both you and your pocketbook happy, check it out.
Reviewed August 2, 2007 by Thom Elkjer.
Other reviewed wines from Merryvale Vineyards
The Wine
Winery: Merryvale Vineyards |
The Reviewer
Thom Elkjer
Thom Elkjer has been reviewing wines professionally for more than ten years. He has contributed to Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, served as Wine Editor for Wine Country Living and is Wine Editor for WineCountry.Com. He also writes for newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Europe and judges at major international wine competitions. |