There’s Merlot…

And then there’s this “gloves off, bare knuckles bruiser” Merlot.

A massive, towering effort from a legendary Napa icon - Rutherford Hill Estate. The kind that wants to go mano-e-mano with its Napa Cab friends. It’s been a few years since we had one on the site, today we’re back and yet again we pulled no punches in hammering the price WAY down from $110 retail to a welterweight $39.

For reference, that’s just a shade over the price of their everyday, entry-level Merlot. It competes with the likes of Pride or Pahlmeyer. And it’ll give many top Napa Cabs a serious inferiority complex.

Keep in mind, this is the “Limited Release” Estate bottling from Atlas Peak. Normally only available from the winery tasting room - somehow, we worked our magic and brought a few cases into our warehouse to share with you.

Rutherford Hill is one of those fixtures in Napa. An old giant hanging out quietly up the Silverado trail just doing their thing for almost 50 years. You can easily miss the sign as you cruise up, but a visit to this winery will take you straight back to 1972 when they were formed. The faces have changed but the wine has been insanely consistent.

If you want a soft, supple, light, and fruity Merlot, delete this email and come back another day. This has the structural integrity of an iron plant, the concentration of a Grandmaster chess player, and Mozart-like complexity. Deep black/red in the glass, it’s medium to full-bodied and simply jammed with smoky blackberries and crushed plums, a dusting of dark chocolate, exotic woods, and some Asian five-spice. Whatever winemaker Marisa Taylor did here and we’re loving it. It’s begging for some hearty slow-cooker beef stew on a cold fall day (we are still waiting for that here in 100-degree Napa Valley.)

No scores for the (outstanding, hint, hint) 2018 vintage, but a previous one was loved by Antonio Galloni’s Vinous for being “A dark, potent… imposing Merlot from Rutherford Hill. Stylistically, the Cask Reserve is much denser and richer than the other two Merlots in the range.”

Wish they shared more with us… but we’re lucky to have any of this rare gem at all.

Get some while you can!