Buccella Merlot

Winemaking
Annual Auction trip to Napa, February 2011. About 8 am on the second day. Gary, Brian, and Maggie are getting ready for a full day of back-to-back winery visits when the first vintner on the docket cancels at the last minute. It looks like it’s shaping up to be a bad morning. That is, until Bill Deem calls. How fast can we get to downtown Napa?

Forty minutes and one quickly scarfed Bouchon muffin later, we’re all sitting around a conference table in a nondescript industrial park, tasting the 2008 Buccella Cabernet, Merlot, and Reserve Cab called Cuvee Katrina Eileen. We had fallen in love with Buccella’s heady, hedonistic but gorgeously balanced Cabernets when we bought the 2007 vintage, but we had never met proprietor Bill Deem or his full-time winemaker Rebekah Wineberg. We did, however, know consulting winemaker Celia Welch (of Scarecrow fame) quite well, and we knew that any project she worked on was one to keep our eyes on. So this was a tasting not to be missed.

To say that was one of the most fortuitous changes of plans we’ve ever had would be an understatement. In their modest garage cellar, we tasted Buccella’s 2009 PNV blend (as it turned out, one of our favorites from this year’s auction), their impressively lush Merlot (perhaps the under-$100 Napa steal of the moment), their stunning 2008 Cabernet (95 well deserved points from Parker and, we think, even better structured than their 96-point 2007), and their closely guarded 125 cs production Cuvee Katrina Eileen (ridiculously good.) It was one of the best visits of the week, this true garage-operation clearly destined for greatness, and somehow we convinced Bill to sell us a good allocation of all three 2008 releases, notoriously difficult to find on the East Coast.

Brian Maxwell Wine Buyer -- Very lush on the palate with dark fruits, chocolate ganache and a shot of great espresso. Though it is decadent there is still enough acidity to lift this wine off its feet. Possibly California’s best Merlot.

Tasting Notes
Typical Buccella Merlot, which means it's one of the best you can find for the vintage (anywhere in the world!!!). Nose is voluptuous blackberry and raspberry liqueur intermingled with tobacco smoke and leather, hints of Saigon cinnamon and nutmeg, definite dark cocoa powder. Mouth is med-heavy with more of the same, serious acidity to buttress it along with substantial tannins.