Duckhorn Puts Muscles on its Femininity

Aug 3, 2015

(Wine-Searcher) - The Napa winery finds power in Merlot and finesse in Cabernet.

Duckhorn is a gender bender, at least in how we perceive Cabernet and Merlot.

Cabernet Sauvignon has a masculine image and, with its usually softer tannins, Merlot is often called "feminine". Sure, Duckhorn Merlot is feminine: feminine like Xena, rippling with muscles, standing over a Mr Bean Cabernet that's saying: "Please dominate me."

"Sometimes we blend our Merlots in to bulk up our Cabs, and our Cabs in to soften our Merlots," Duckhorn winemaker Renee Ary told Wine Searcher.

So when you learn Duckhorn makes the most popular high-end Merlot in California, you have to wonder – what does that mean exactly? That more people like Merlot than is commonly assumed, or that they like female action-hero Merlot?

What we do know is that they like Duckhorn Merlot. The winery has been focused on Merlot since Dan and Margaret Duckhorn made the first vintage in 1978. Dan Duckhorn, who sold the winery in 2007 to a private equity group in Silicon Valley, is a fan of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, sites of the world's greatest Merlot-based wines, and thought warm, sunny Napa Valley was the perfect place to properly ripen the grape.

Dan's most important find was the Three Palms Vineyard in Calistoga, the hottest part of Napa Valley. The former winter home for socialite Lillie Coit, after whom San Francisco's Coit Tower was named, had been purchased in 1967 by John and Sloan Upton. Without uprooting the remaining three palm trees, the Uptons planted the rocky soils with the most popular California varietal at the time – Chenin Blanc – along with Pinot Noir. Californians didn't much understand the terroir thing in 1967. Fortunately, the Uptons also planted some Merlot.

"Dan came out and tasted it, and the rest was history," says Frank P.J. Alviso, Duckhorn's director of estate viticulture. And indeed, Duckhorn made its name on its Three Palms Vineyard Merlot.

"My favorite current offering from Duckhorn is the Three Palms Merlot," says Nancy Smith, owner of Michael Smith restaurant in Kansas City. "Before I put it on my list, I had a tasting and it blew me away. Complex for a Merlot with really contrasting elements of ripe red berries with earthy notes. It is so easy to drink and fun to deconstruct."

In May, after buying the fruit for 37 years, Duckhorn finally bought the Three Palms Vineyard itself.

"I really want to move away from herbicide," Alviso told Wine Searcher. "And I think that we can. They used to spray a lot more herbicide here than I'm comfortable with. This vineyard is easy. It's low disease pressure. If there was one vineyard we could take organic and biodynamic, this would be it."

Duckhorn has made other changes over the last decade, though they might best be described as tweaks designed to keep the taste profile where they are.

"In 2005 there was a trend for wines to get a lot bigger," Alviso said. "We made a conscious decision to pull back. We have a stylistic sphere to live in."

Most Duckhorn red wines are labeled at 14.5 percent alcohol. Under US labeling laws, that means they might actually be as high as 15.5 percent, but that's still less than many red wines these days from the warmer parts of Napa Valley.

The year 2005 was a key one for Duckhorn because the movie "Sideways," with its famous slam of Merlot, was released in January. Many producers of Merlot suddenly found their wine a harder sell, but Duckhorn had an established customer base and a reputation for quality. The movie may have worried Duckhorn, but it hasn't had longterm impact.

"We think Sideways helped weed out some of the less-serious Merlot makers," Ary says.

Ary said her goal in making each wine is "finish, layers, finesse. Starting in 2007 we started tapering back on new oak. Even 5 to 10 percent less makes a big difference."

Duckhorn makes 175,000 cases a year, and that does not include sister wineries Paraduxx, a Napa winery that specializes in Zinfandel-based red blends; Goldeneye and Migration, which make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Anderson Valley; or Canvasback, a new project on Washington's Red Mountain. Each has its own winemaker and, while they share information, in some cases – notably with Paraduxx and Duckhorn – they fight over vineyard sources, because good Merlot can also bring some of that masculine femininity to a red blend.

The bulk of Duckhorn's production are its four Napa Valley appellation wines: a Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Sauvignon Blanc, and a Chardonnay that was just added this year. But the interesting wines are the single-vineyard and sub-appellation Merlots, Cabernets, and the top-end blend called The Discussion, made from a selection of the best barrels of the Bordeaux varieties.


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