Leonetti Merlot 2020
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James
Suckling - Vinous
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Wine
Spectator -
Jeb
Dunnuck
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Intensely deep color. The aromatics are rich and sweet with notes of pomegranate, plum, raspberry, baking spices, vanilla, bay leaf, and a hint of plumeria. Broad and elegant on the palate with cherry chocolate character, a silky-smooth mouthfeel, and a plush, lengthy finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of fleshy plum, blackberry and fresh mint. Full-bodied with tight tannins. Rich and cozy on the palate with an array of ripe, dark fruit. Layered and plush. Nice depth here. Fresh in the center palate.
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Vinous
The 2020 Merlot opens with a mentholated freshness, as crushed blueberries and dusty rose give way to hints of sweet baking spice. This is like pure silk on the palate. Elegant and plush in feel, with sweet red fruits offset by brilliant acidity and white pepper. The 2020 tapers off structured yet fresh, to almost trick me into wanting to drink it now. Violette pastille and black currant linger on, as this tapers off lightly structured and almost too easy to like. The 2020 is luxuriously soft in feel, and with an earlier appeal than usual.
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Wine Spectator
Handsome in structure, if rather tightly wound, offering appealing black currant flavors accented by savory and dusky spices that build tension toward medium-grained tannins.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Always bottled early, the 2020 Merlot is all varietal from a mix of sites in the Walla Walla Valley. It has a juicy, medium to full-bodied, chewy style on the palate as well as good purity in its ripe red and blue fruits, notes of tobacco, scorched earth, and graphite-like aromatics. It has some grippy, chalk tannins, and while rock-solid today, it's not a wine to hide away in the cellar.
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With generous fruit and supple tannins, Merlot is made in a range of styles from everyday-drinking to world-renowned and age-worthy. Merlot is the dominant variety in the wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank regions of St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is often blended with Cabernet Franc to spectacular result. Merlot also frequently shines on its own, particularly in California’s Napa Valley. Somm Secret—As much as Miles derided the variety in the 2004 film, Sideways, his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc is actually a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.