2017 Arietta Merlot Hudson Vineyard Carneros Napa Valley 750 ml

Napa’s top-tier Merlots are velvety, ageworthy challengers to the best of Bordeaux’s Right Bank. But that top-tier club is an exclusive one—and Arietta’s been there for years.

That’s because their wines are “always among the more interesting and singular from Napa Valley,” according to Wine Advocate—bottles with “a European sensitivity for elegance, structure, and delineation,” but that “are clearly products of California.”

That’s exactly what you get with Arietta’s 2017 Hudson Vineyard Merlot, which has only ever been offered to their wine club. As decadent as an array of artisan chocolates on fine silver, it’s got a palate of pure silk yet maintains tension throughout. Showing ripe berries adorned with flourishes of vanilla, toasted oak, lavender, lilac, and clove, the wine shows the depth Merlot can achieve when it comes from a quality-obsessed producer and exceptional terroir.

Arietta is awash in top talent and spectacular grapes. Their winemaker is multi-100-point star Andy Erickson, and the berries for this wine come from Carneros’ lauded Hudson Vineyard, which has attracted a who’s who of Napa producers.

Nestled into the rolling hills and gravelly soils of Carneros, Hudson’s red grapes thrive under foggy skies and winds off San Pablo Bay. Wine Enthusiast highlighted Hudson as a premier site for Napa Merlot and said the block Arietta tapped for this wine produces “incredibly complex” expressions of the variety. 

Erickson gave those grapes the royal treatment in the cellar and rested the wine for 22 months in 43% new French oak, imbuing it with texture and spice. It’s extremely rewarding right now but easily has another 15 years ahead of it.