50 Harvests Meritage Napa Valley Red Wine 2012

This bottle of 50 Harvests Meritage Napa Valley Red Wine 2012 was a media sample that I received last fall in a half bottle size. It had dropped to the back of my large wine fridge where it had, unfortunately, gotten lost and forgotten with some bottles being saved for long term storing. During a clean-up/rearranging session, I recently discovered it.

While working at home, I decided to open it up with a takeout burger that was topped with sauteed onions, mushrooms and Swiss cheese. Yes, I usually eat much lighter than that during the day but I was staying home, my husband was out of town for a few days and I was living in yoga pants. My schedule was actually the writer's schedule that everyone suspects that I have all the time.

Anyway, back to the wine. This was a wine that I could easily have believed was Napa Valley or Bordeaux in a blind tasting; I would have gone back and forth when having to fill in that blank spot. Intense aromas of ripe blackberry, violets and graphite; dry, moderate acidity, velvety tannins with more cranberry and black tea in the flavor and persistent finish. A recommended wine, I finished the half bottle alone on my long lunch break.

Some info from the bottle: 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 10% Malbec and 10% Petite Verdot from low yield vineyards in the Oak Knoll District, aged in French Oak with 13.9% ABV. This wine was created to honor the Scotto family's 50 years in California and the grandfather that had brought the family here from Italy in time for the 1963 harvest. A limited production, SRP is $50 for a 750ml bottle.

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