Saturday Night – Dinner from A to Z – Part 3

The second course of the night was Caprese salad and this was paired with a 2009 Hall Merlot.

 

The nose on this wine was a monster (certainly no glass swirling needed here!) with clove, pine needle, blackberry, vanilla and hickory smoke. Tasting the wine, plum, coffee, green pepper were the dominate flavours with some oak in the background. Structure-wise this wine was damn near perfect – big and bold and smooth with a huge mouth-feel but a touch more fruit would have been nice. With fruit not jumping out at the forefront, this merlot was very cab like and while it was a good pairing with the salad, I suspect it would have been amazing with some dark chocolate.

Here is the group rating for the wine - Mick – 88, Mark – 89, Kathy – 86, Amy – 86, Overall – 87.25.

Here is LCBO information on the wine –

Hall Merlot 2009

VINTAGES#: 342782
Price: $39.95
750 mL bottle
Alcohol/Vol15.5%
Made in: California, USA
By: Hall Wines
Sugar Content:14 g/L
Sweetness Descriptor: XD - Extra Dry
Style: Full-bodied & Smooth
Varietal: Merlot

The last few Merlots I have had have been very thin and I’m not a fan of that style of Merlot. The Hall Merlot was a great example of what a well-structured Merlot should be like. I was amazed that the Alcohol was listed at 15.5% as it certainly didn’t come across as hot.

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