Duckhorn Three Palms Merlot 2016
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Winemaker Notes
Varietal Content: 93% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Malbec
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Blended with 6% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Malbec, this vintage is superb and exuberant in flavors of chocolate-covered plum, baking spice and dried herb. Structured, robust and mineral-driven, it is powerful yet balanced. Enjoy 2026–2036. Cellar Selection.
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James Suckling
This offers lots of plums, blueberries and violets on the nose. Some fresh-herb and green-olive undertones. Full-bodied and balanced with fresh fruit, sweet vanilla and wet-stone undertones. Chewy tannins and a long finish. Great potential, but already delicious. Impressed. A blend of 93% merlot, 6% cabernet sauvignon and 1% malbec. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Vibrant acidity supports polished flavors of plum tart, dried cherry and dark olive, backed by crisp tannins. Dark chocolate notes merge with herbal accents on the liltingly smoky finish. Drink now through 2024.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
6% Cabernet Sauvignon; 1% Malbec. Duckhorn’s Three Palms bottlings inevitably vie for top honors, and this latest incarnation is a deep and character-loaded wine rife with concentrated, black cherry fruit and decked out with a lovely complement of sweet, slightly caramelly oak. It is broad and full-bodied on the palate, and, although it teases with early suppleness as good Merlot is wont to do, it is, in fact, a very solidly built wine that suggests a bit of Cabernet structural influence and gradually tightens and finishes with moderate tannins making a good case for at least four or five more years of age
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Wine & Spirits
If you spend some time with this wine, the red fruit begins to emerge from all the gamey, meaty darkness. At first it smells and tastes like morcilla, if morcilla were made from duck. The spiciness opens as the fruit comes forward, the tannins still black but predicting a long life ahead. Three Palms is a rocky mid-Valley site near the border between St. Helena and Calistoga, a vineyard designate for Duckhorn since 1978 and part of the winery’s estate since 2015.
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Founded by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn in 1976, Duckhorn Vineyards has been crafting classic Napa Valley wines for nearly 40 years. This winemaking tradition has grown to include seven meticulously farmed Estate vineyards, located throughout the various microclimates of the Napa Valley. Focused on quality and consistency, these Estate vineyards are an essential element in making wines of distinction. Pioneering and perfecting Merlot as a premium varietal, Duckhorn Vineyards now makes several elegant Merlot and distinctive Cabernet Sauvignon bottlings that showcase its premium vineyard sites. Duckhorn Vineyards has been named one of the “Top 100 Wineries” in the world eight times by Wine & Spirits, and the 2014 Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot Three Palms Vineyard was named the “2017 Wine of the Year,” topping Wine Spectator’s annual list of the world’s “Top 100 Wines.”
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.
One of Napa Valley’s oldest wine growing subregions but last to gain appellation status, Calistoga occupies the northernmost section of the valley. Beginning at the foot of Mount St. Helena, its vineyards stretch over steep canyons and roll out onto the valley floor. The soils in Calistoga are volcanic, which means they are heavy in minerals, low in organic matter and allow good drainage for vine roots, creating less green growth and more concentration of flavor within the grape berries.
Summer days are very hot but most nights cool down with moist ocean breezes sneaking in over the Mayacamas Mountains or from Knights Valley to its northwest.
Cabernet Sauvignon is the area’s star variety with Zinfandel coming in a strong second, though the latter commands far less price per tonnage so continues to be outshined by Cabernet in vineyard acreage, save for some important exceptions.