Rob's "Wine of the Week" Archives
So here is my wine review for the week of December 5th, 2005...
Del Dotto Merlot 2003
Description: Merlots became popular in the 1990's for their fruity flavors that allowed some people to graduate from the disgusting "white-zin" to a real wine. Great merlots, however, are much more complex that a simply fruity red wine. With this bottle, we get an early glimpse at the 2003 vintage.
How to Get it: Del Dotto continues to grow in popularity as they keep churning out more and more great wine. They have a huge winery in Napa, an on-line site (http://www.deldottovineyards.com) and can be found in many wine specialty stores and on restaurant wine lists.
How Much: It's about $40-50 per bottle.
My Thoughts: I was very leery about this wine going in. While I love Del Dotto wines, they have been producing more and more varieties lately, including an entire line of red wine ports that I could do without. Usually when wineries branch out too much, they lose their quality (think Mondavi!). Given that, I couldn't have been happier with this wine. What a great bottle of vanilla, soft fruit, a little cinnamon and a great, big finish worthy of a cab without the tannic bite. If this bottle is at all indicative of the 2003 vintage in Napa, we may be in for our first back to back years of great Napa red wine in a long time.
Overall Score: It's impossible to not give this wine my highest score of 5 vines. This is a true merlot; complex yet without the tannic bite of a cab, yet still possessing a great finish. A magnificent effort on the part of Del Dotto.
Del Dotto Merlot =
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