Merlot, My Dear

It was another month of wine club ... and this month had us revisiting the world of Merlot. It was fun to reminisce a bit on our maturity of wine, because many of us commented that we used to think Merlot was a bigger wine that it actually is now.

The fare to pair with Merlot seemed simple, but it was complicate (and alas, I forgot to take a picture of the dessert!)
There was the good ol' standard nut/rice crackers and some cheese straws, complemented with:

 beef tenderloin skewers with au jus and horseradish

 deep-fried stuffed olives

eggplant Parmesan bites

almond and goat cheese stuff dates wrapped in Prosciutto

Dessert was roasted pears with a Merlot and cherry sauce and Marscapone cheese, truly a delicious treat and pretty, so it's a shame I forgot to take a photo!

Now to the wines. Our first Merlot was the only domestic Merlot. It was smooth, bright and exhibited lots of cherry flavor. We all agreed that this was one you could enjoy on a cold spring day and it would bring just enough warmth to your toes:

The second wine was a bit drier, loads of tannins and left us all reaching for our water glasses. It paired well with the beef and the stuffed dates. Unfortunately, it was probably the least favorite wine of the evening. 

The third wine was the ringer. The object of the ringer is that we did all of these blind (well, except for me) and so it was to test the ladies' familiarity with the wine to see if they could pull out which one was not like the others. I chose a Cab that I had on had to be the ringer (a very good Cab to be exact.) Everyone enjoyed this wine quite a bit, but no one guessed that it was the ringer. 

Our next wine was very bright and almost a bit jammy. It had a nice acidity to it and was well-balanced overall. Nothing super exceptional, but again, if you want a simple wine that you can drink on it's own, this one will fair well: 

The fifth and final wine was a little reminiscent of the second wine, but a bit more tolerable. It was definitely dry and had some serious tannin action going on. And I of course enjoyed that it was a southern hemisphere wine, because I am a big fan lately of anything from South America. 

So, while Merlots will never be my favorite glass of vino, I can definitely know there are a few safe options for me to grab if I ever need to. In addition, it's supposedly one of the most popular reds because people feel safe ordering it ... and if that's the case, I hope people become more adventurous, because this is a basic red ... there is a lot of greatness out there to be discovered!