Moving to the 2017s, the smaller production 2017 Merlot Vintners Select has a similar deep ruby hue compared to the classic Merlot and offers nots of mulled black cherries, red plums, toasted spices, mocha, and some vanilla oak. As with the base cuvee, it’s medium-bodied, lightly textured, and certainly delicious. Drink it over the coming decade as well.

The 2017 Merlot Vintner Select races out of the glass with super-ripe red cherry, kirsch, sweet pipe tobacco and cedar. The Vintner Select Merlot is a typical 2017, ripe and overt, but also lacking a bit in structure. I would prefer to drink it on the earlier side.

Composed of 100% Merlot, the 2017 Merlot Vintner's Select comes from 44% Sonoma County and 56% Napa County. Pale to medium garnet-purple colored, it sashays out of the glass with pretty notes of warm plums, kirsch and raspberry pie plus suggestions of chocolate box, star anise and wild sage with a waft of tobacco leaf. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is soft and juicy with lots of energetic red fruit sparks among the black berry flavors, finishing with an invigorating herbal lift.

Introduced by a genuinely juicy, intensely fruity nose of ripe cherries bordered by sweet oak and a light touch of milk-chocolate, this is a congenial, indelibly varietal wine that gets the nod for its is upfront richness. It is fully ripe but in no way overdone, and ripeness never once threatens to take precedence over its ongoing fruit. Moderately full-bodied with temperate tannins for grip, it is, on the whole, a fairly rich and well-mannered Merlot that drinks well now with sundry steaks and chops but will continue to grow for another four or five years.