"I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!"

Except in Bordeaux. And Tuscany. And Three Palms or Howell Mountain in Napa. Or…

It’s been 21 years since the iconic movie Sideways was released, 21 years since the famous line, “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot,” shouted by Paul Giamata’s character, Miles.

If you’re into wine, doubtless you’ve seen the movie more than once, and it is still better than ever. And Merlot still has a bad reputation, mostly because the wine industry does a wretched job of describing why you should love Merlot, and which ones you should love. Plus, they still make a lot of rotten California Merlot, something to serve to your worst enemy if you want to give them a long and lasting headache.

Miles doesn’t hate Merlot. He loves it. But he associates it with his ex-wife he can’t get over, and that’s why he doesn’t want to drink any fucking Merlot. Pinot Noir? Oh yes. But not Merlot.

It’s still bemusing to me how one line from one movie can crater an entire industry, but the numbers prove it. California Merlot was already on the decline when Sideways was released in 2004, after a boom in the 90’s that led to over-production and low quality. The year after the movie, sales declined a mere 2%, but cratered in the years afterwards. Interestingly, sales of Pinot Noir, praised by Miles, increased 16%, even though there is a lot of bad Pinot Noir on the market- think the strawberry Kool Aid called Meiomi.

I am here to praise Merlot, not to bury it. Strangely, it is the grape that pulled me into wine, and it is still the grape I love surprising people with, especially those who say they aren’t drinking any fucking Merlot.

In 1998, at the age of 27, I went to see a college friend who lives within easy driving of Napa, and we went wine tasting. It was more FrontWays than Sideways since he was doing very well, happily married with a young son, and he still is. I knew nothing about wine, of course, but I loved the tastings. This was before Napa turned into a skin-flint profit center, and we could taste mostly for free (Coppola was the only one that charged us).

We went to Mondavi, we went to V. Sattui (which was a party) and we went to Beringer. I liked Beringer because it was one of a handful of wineries that made wine during Prohibition, for “medicinal purposes.” I remember trying their Merlot, and liking it better than their Cab, which was a little harsh.

I wasn’t much of a drinker from 1998 to 2009, but on the rare occasion I drank wine, I drank Beringer Merlot. I didn’t know any better. I’d drink a glass, cork the bottle, put it in the refrigerator, and drink the rest over two weeks. Like I said, I didn’t know any better. It tasted like “wine,” to me, in the same vein as “communion wine.”

What year did I first watch Sideways? I can’t quite recall, 2010, 2012, perhaps. I loved the movie, and around that time, I stopped drinking Merlot. Not because of the movie, but because I’d gotten into fine Scotch Whiskey, and a friend introduced me to better wines- California Old Vine Zinfandels, and the Orin Swift wines. Beringer Merlot thankfully disappeared into the past.

I wrote about it in another article, but the first truly magical bottle of wine I had in 2015 was mostly Merlot, and I didn’t even know it. I just knew it was a Bordeaux, it was from France, the French made good wine, and this stuff took me to another place. You can read about it here:

Even though that wine blew me away, I wasn’t thinking in terms of “Merlot.” I was thinking about “Bordeaux” instead, not a bad thought. I had no idea Merlot was the most planted grape in Bordeaux, a region known for elegance, quality and sophistication. And I wouldn’t have believed it, anyways, after drinking Beringer Merlot for so many years. It may have “gotten the job done,” but fine wine it ain’t.

Thank God the word “Bordeaux” sounds sophisticated because that’s what got me to try it. After getting into Scotch and discovering that yes, higher end Scotches, are substantially better than, say, Cutty Sark and Johnny Walker Red, I was intrigued by wine. But Good Lord, reading about wine as a beginner was a mind twist. It was such a put off, I decided to use the “Bumble Method,” to see if I could find more Bordeaux that moved me.

The Bumble Method is this. You go to the closest wine store (in this case Total Wine) with one word in your brain, and you bumble around that section until you see a bottle with a label that looks good. Good luck in asking a sales associate about French wine in Texas, because you are going to get a blank stare.

In 2018, I applied the Bumble Method to the nearest Total Wine, went into the section labeled “Bordeaux,” saw a sophisticated looking label on a bottle that went for $50, and decided to bumble out with it. It was something called Chateau Fonplegade 2015. I liked the label because it was a plain white label with a hand drawn Chateau on it, and it said “Grand Cru Classe.” I figured that meant the wine was grand and classy, something a Bordeaux should be. It would taste grand and classy, and I would look grand and classy drinking it. Nothing wrong with that.

They say fortune favors the bold, and in this case fortune was on my side, even though I was more bumbling than bold. I knew enough by then that the wine should be served at 55 to 60 degrees F, and you should drink it in a wide bowl Bordeaux glass, and decant it if it’s young.

Saturday night was my drinking night back then, so after a good meal, it was wine time. I didn’t want to pair the Fonplegade with food, I wanted it to stand on its own, to see if this bottle was as good as the Bordeaux I’d had a few years ago. The Fonplegade was from a region in Bordeaux called St. Emilion, so I had high hopes it was not only “grand” and “classy,” but perhaps even saintly and heavenly.

I poured myself a glass, and took a sip. My God. It WAS Saintly. It WAS Classy. It WAS Grand. And it was FUCKING Merlot. Yep, after the first glass I had to look it up, and Chateau Fonplegade is about 90% Merlot, 10% Cab Franc, depending on the vintage. As I went through the bottle, it went from Saintly to Heavenly, and I kept thinking to myself, “I am drinking FUCKING Merlot, and it is FUCKING amazing.”

Al Pacino in Scarface would have been proud of how many “fucks” I thought to myself

.That did it for me, I stopped bumbling and dove right in to the Right Bank Bordeaux’s, St Emilion and Pomerol, almost all of which are mostly Merlot. I figured out what Grand Cru meant in St. Emilion, what Grand Cru En Classe meant, what En Classe B meant, and en Classe A meant.

The quick wine education run down is this:

“Grand Cru,” means “Great Growth,” and in St. Emilion, Grand Cru is a geographic designation, with longer aging requirements, lower yields, and a minimum alcohol content of 11.5%.

“Grand Cru en Classe,” IS a designation of quality, including evaluation by a tasting panel. Grand Cru en Classe is the lowest of these designations, but you can get some excellent value en Classes, such as Chateau Fonplegade. The next level up is Grand Cru en Classe B. What’s hilarious about this designation is no one puts Grand Cru en Classe B on their labels because who wants to be a B? That implies you’re not an A!

So what you will see instead is “1er Grand Cru Classe” or Premier Grand Cru Classe. I believe there are 14 Chateaus with this designation, and the wines are just sublime. They won’t kill you either, you can get some great ones for $130 a bottle or so.

The highest designation is Grand Cru en Classe A, and that designation leads to all sorts of fights and drama. Currently only Chateau Pavie and Chateau Figeac have that designation, but that’s because Cheval Blanc, Angelus, and Ausone got huffy at the last reclassification in 2022 and decided they would declassify themselves and stand on their own. They are all amazing wines, and what would French wine be without drama?

In Pomerol, right next to St. Emilion, there is a wine called Petrus that can go for $10k at bottle. Guess what? It is 100% Merlot.

Regardless of what’s on the label, the result in the bottle is this: the wines are both rich and elegant at the same time, with a luscious rounded mouthfeel and a gorgeous combination of red and black fruits popping off at the same time. Blackberry. Black plum. Black cherry. Red plum. Red cherry. A hint of cedar. A bit of tobacco. Dutch baking cocoa. Espresso. Crushed stone minerality. Rich black earth and forest floor. Not just individual notes and aromas, but rotating aromas and flavors that dance and swirl in your mouth and tongue. You want to hold them in your mouth as long as possible without swallowing, but when you do, you are rewarded with a magnificent finish, a memory of what was, making you want more.

The noses are black fruit and violet flowers, with some vanilla and baking spices from French oak. The palates exceed what the noses promise, and the wine begins to creep into areas of your mind where emotion and memories live. You begin to feel things you haven’t felt in decades. Old memories flash into your mind. The wine grabs hold of you and for a few wonderful hours, takes you to another place. And while that feeling only lasts five glasses, you never, ever forget it. Each bottle is unique, each bottle is a dream made real.

And that’s what real FUCKING Merlot tastes like.

treat yourself to some. If you are a wine lover, it will blow you away. But I won’t leave you with the Bumble Method. I’ll leave you with some recommendations. The Chateau Fonplegade lead me to become a Certified Sommelier, and in the most ironic of ironies, the questions I got during the Service Portion of the exam were all about FUCKING Merlot from Pomerol and St. Emilion.

I aced them.

You simply cannot make this up.

My recommendations for FUCKING Merlot from St. Emilion and elsewhere? They are yours:

Choose any recent vintage of these except 2021 and 2017:
Chateau Fonplegade
Fleur de Cardinale
Chateau Larciss Ducasse Grand Cru en Classe B
Château Pavie Macquin Grand Cru en Classe B
Château Troplong Mondot Grand Cru en Classe B
Château Beausejour Duffau Grand Cru en Classe B (I just call it Château Duffy)

If you want to get wild and crazy with your wallet, go with:

Chateau Pavie
Chateau Angelus
Chateua Ausone
Chateau Figeac
Chateau Cheval Blanc.

They make great Merlot in Tuscany, Italy as well. Try this one:
Le Macchiole Messorio

And in honor of Miles from Sideways, yes, California DOES make great FUCKING Merlot. Try:

Duckhorn Three Palms
Keenan Merlot
Darioush Merlot
La Jota Howell Mountain

Enough reading, enough writing. Let’s honor Miles and go drink some FUCKING Merlot in his honor. And then we will retire the overuse of the word “FUCKING” for future articles. We will also never use the word “curated.”