Wolffer Estate 2006 Reserve Merlot

When I sit down to one of the Sunday morning wine tastings I conduct here on our dining room table, I never quite know what I’m going to get. I taste wine from every corner of New York State and, frankly, sometimes it can be an extreme sport. There is a lot of bad wine being made in New York, people. There. I said it.

That’s one reason I appreciate Wolffer Estate so much. 99% of the time, I know what I’m going to get — elegance, balance and quality.

This Wolfer Estate 2006 Reserve Merlot ($20) is a fine example of that. And, it's a decent value in $20 local merlot from a cool vintage.

Medium-dark garnet in the glass, this red is 100% merlot and smells of of black cherries, thyme, oregano, dried leaves, subtle hints of flowers and sweet oak.

Lighter and elegant in style (lovers of California merlot may not even recognize this as merlot), the palate shows floral flavors with sweet cherries, more of those herbs and spice. Fine-grained tannins and acidity make this a nice "food wine" and I don't mean that in a bad way.

A wet stone note on the medium-length finish is also interesting too.

Producer: Wolffer Estate
AVA: The Hamptons, Long Island
ABV: 13%
Price: $20
Rating: (2.5 out of 5 | Average-to-Very Good) 

(Ratings Guide)

Comments

[Lenn Thompson]

Note: I mistakenly posted this originally as a 3-star wine. I meant to post it as a 2.5-star wine and have made that correction.

[Dave Foley]

Lenn,
It sounds like you taste a lot more wine than you actually review in your blog. I assume this comes down to two key reasons:
1) not enough time to write about everything
2) not enough inspiration from a given wine to waste time posting detailed notes about it.
However, I think there is value in listing all the wines you taste, even if you don't score them.
One of my biggest complaints about the Wine Advocate (and one of the reasons I ceased subscibing years ago) was that Parker would taste wine from a large estate (let's say Mondavi for example) but then would proceed to only post notes about the wines he recommended (which were usually the $50+ type bottlings), leaving the reader to wonder if he never tasted the $15 Cab or if he tasted it but didn't recommend it.
Anyway, it would be nice to see a list (maybe weekly?) of all the wines you tasted, regardless if you posted a review or not.