Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
I just got the new Wine Spectator. The 2017 Wine of the Year is the 2014 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Merlot!
You might remember Duckhorn as one of the medium-priced brands on the type of chain restaurant wine lists last updated in 1993 where Kendall-Jackson chardonnay (WS's #28 wine of the year!) is one of the more everyday offerings and Opus One is there for high rollers. But don't be fooled, Three Palms Vineyard is fancy, top-of-the-line stuff. It's special because it's from a single vineyard.
What makes Three Palms Vineyard so special? Glad you asked! The WS reports that the main distinguishing characteristic is the three palm trees that grow in the middle of the vines. That's pretty distinctive indeed since we all know that vitis vinifera is native to Europe and the Caucasus while palm trees are, well, mostly "restricted to tropical and subtropical climates" (thanks Wikipedia). So Duckhorn found a pretty strange-- er, distinctive!--spot to grow merlot.
"Three Palms is a unique site for Merlot," the winemaker explains to Wine Spectator. "It's warm and rocky, and you really have to be on top of things there because Merlot is susceptible to hydric stress." You see, it's the CHALLENGES that make the site so special! Duckhorn manages the heat and hydric stress "through timely applications of water from drip irrigation."
And here you were probably thinking that supermarket wines don't have any terroir!
It's so nice we have the wine mags around to do shoe-leather reporting to turn up these undiscovered gems.
You might remember Duckhorn as one of the medium-priced brands on the type of chain restaurant wine lists last updated in 1993 where Kendall-Jackson chardonnay (WS's #28 wine of the year!) is one of the more everyday offerings and Opus One is there for high rollers. But don't be fooled, Three Palms Vineyard is fancy, top-of-the-line stuff. It's special because it's from a single vineyard.
What makes Three Palms Vineyard so special? Glad you asked! The WS reports that the main distinguishing characteristic is the three palm trees that grow in the middle of the vines. That's pretty distinctive indeed since we all know that vitis vinifera is native to Europe and the Caucasus while palm trees are, well, mostly "restricted to tropical and subtropical climates" (thanks Wikipedia). So Duckhorn found a pretty strange-- er, distinctive!--spot to grow merlot.
"Three Palms is a unique site for Merlot," the winemaker explains to Wine Spectator. "It's warm and rocky, and you really have to be on top of things there because Merlot is susceptible to hydric stress." You see, it's the CHALLENGES that make the site so special! Duckhorn manages the heat and hydric stress "through timely applications of water from drip irrigation."
And here you were probably thinking that supermarket wines don't have any terroir!
It's so nice we have the wine mags around to do shoe-leather reporting to turn up these undiscovered gems.
