The Woodward Canyon 2009 Merlot – sourced entirely from Weinbau Vineyard – offers a delightful display of toasted nuts, black tea, mint, and ripe dark cherry on a fetching nose and polished palate persistently laden with inner-mouth perfume. A bittersweet, medicinal combination of herbal concentrates and fruit pit lends the finish here a distinctive sense of grip. This fine bottling ought to delight for at least another half dozen years. Winemaker Kevin Mott agrees with me that self-standing Merlot has a potential in Washington that has been unjustly neglected in recent years, and he opines that certain of the U.C. Davis clones of this cepage have proven better adapted to environs in this state. This ought to perform well for at least a half dozen years and probably significantly longer. Washington pioneer Rick Small – along with veteran and, since 2003, Woodward Canyon’s winemaker Kevin Mott – chose to show me only a slightly abbreviated line-up of their recent bottlings, and a good deal of time was spent discussing matters viticultural and historical, including this estate’s evolution in the 1980s, at which time I was selling their wines as a retailer and had last tasted with him. “We advanced substantially in quality,” observes Small of those early years, “because we allowed ourselves to make mistakes and to learn from them.” In addition to their estate vineyard, in Lowden, west of Walla Walla (the driest location in that A.V.A.), first planted in 1977, Woodward Canyon sources from a who’s who of established sites across south-central and eastern Washington, and is one of several winemaker-partners in Champoux Vineyard. Tel. (509) 525-4129; www.woodwardcanyon.com.

The almost-16% alcohol is difficult to ignore here, as it seems to blow away the nuances that these Woodward Canyon Merlots are usually so good at expressing. As a result, the fruit seems simple, with sweet berry and hints of oranges. It’s round and concentrated, but not as textural and detailed as past vintages. ——P.G.(4/1/2012)—— 88