Columbia Crest Merlot H3 Horse Heaven Hills 750ml

Winery: Columbia Crest

Varietal: Merlot

With its dark blue colored fruits and high juice content, Merlot varietal grapes have long been a favorite of wine producers around the globe, with it being found in vineyards across Europe, the Americas and elsewhere in the New World. One of the distinguishing features of Merlot grapes is the fact that they have a relatively low tannin content and an exceptionally soft and fleshy character, meaning they are capable of producing incredibly rounded and mellow wines. This mellowness is balanced with plenty of flavor, however, and has made Merlot grapes the varietal of choice for softening other, more astringent and tannin-heavy wines, often resulting in truly exceptional produce. Merlot is regarded as one of the key 'Bordeaux' varietals for precisely this reason; when combined with the drier Cabernet Sauvignon, it is capable of blending beautifully to produce some of the finest wines available in the world.

Region: Washington State

Washington state currently holds host to over six hundred wineries, each producing wines using the many classic grape varietals which flourish in the arid, dry region to the east of the Cascade mountains. Since the Washington wine industry began in the beginning of the 19th century, great efforts have been made to irrigate the semi-desert which makes up much of the state, and the results have been enormously successful in regards to creating an environment in which a wide range of grapevines can flourish. There are certain fine wineries in the wetter western region of Washington, although these make up less than one percent of the region's overall wine production levels. Recent decades have seen red wines becoming increasingly popular in the United States, and many of those produced in Washington are considered to be amongst the country's finest produce.

Country: United States

For three hundred years now, the United States has been leading the New World in wine production, both in regards to quantity and quality. Wine is actually produced in all fifty states across the country, with California leading the way by an enormous margin. Indeed, as much as eighty-nine percent of all wines to come out of the United States are produced in California, where the fertile soils and sloping mountain sides, coupled with the long, hot summers provide ideal conditions for producing high quality, European style red, white and rosé wines. With over a million acres of the country under vine, the United States sits comfortably as the fourth largest wine producer in the world, where imported grape varietals from all over the Old World are processed using a successful blend of traditional and contemporary techniques.