Merus Wines has risen from humble “garagiste’ beginnings to their current more auspicious historic winery home. This brand was started by Erika Gottl and Mark Herold (both met while teens in Orange County, CA) in their garage on Patchett Street in a downtown neighborhood in the city of Napa. Incidentally the name Patchett was named after John Patchett, the founder of Patchett Cellars, the first winery established in Napa Valley in the late 1850s. The first vintage of Merus was a 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Merus wines have always been limited in production with quality being of the greatest importance. William Foley of Foley Family Estates purchased the Merus brand in late 2007 and then in 2008 acquired a physical winery property on Crystal Springs Road near St. Helena, which became the permanent home of Merus. Both Herold and Gottl remained part of the winemaking team for a short while to help during the transition in ownership. Harold started his own brand called Mark Herold Wines which he later sold to Brion Wise and he continues to consult for a select number of Napa Valley brands.
The name Merus in Latin means undiluted, unmixed or complete as in referring to wine.
Time and time again we have heard the wine making mantra mentioned, “it all starts in the vineyards”. At Merus this is a truism that is extremely important. While having never owned vineyards for their own wine, Merus works with 20-25 small growers each year whose micro vineyards range in size from merely a tenth of an acre to vineyards much larger. Merus has significant input into how they want these vineyards managed, from cover crops, to trellising, to harvest decisions. This attention to detail is carried over into the winery; Merus describes their own winemaking as, “obsessive enology”.
Such is their focus on quality that their winemaking team only uses a percentage of barrels for the final blends (typically less than 55%). While their source vineyards are small, they do not pick each vineyard in one pass rather they hand select the grapes down to the individual rows and vines, thus ensuring they are picking grapes which has the flavor profile they desire. As a result, during harvest, they continuously manage many small lot fermentations.
Merus produces several wines each each year, but with a focus on the namesake Merus Cabernet Sauvignon. Grapes for this wine are sourced from various vineyard locations including St. Helena, Stags Leap and Coombsville. Merus has sourced from Coombsville since their first vintages. This is still Napa Valley’s newest sub appellation; it became a sub-AVA in late 2011 and since then has developed a solid reputation as a source for cooler climate Cabernet Sauvignon and other red varieties. While generally accepted that this is a cooler growing region, Coombsville has many micro-climates especially on the east side of the region against the warmer summertime slopes of the Vaca mountains. Wines from this region are surprisingly complex, soft and layered in flavor and typically not vegetal on the nose or on the palate.
Merus also makes another wine under the name Altvs, introduced into their portfolio in 2005. As they say at the winery, this is the wine to enjoy drinking while your Merus wines are aging. Their current production of Merus is 500 cases with the production of Altus at 1,000 cases every year. Each wine is stylistically different from the other.
Select Wines
In 2013 Merus introduced a Chardonnay under the Altvs label. Rather surprisingly, this wine was sourced from a cooler north facing slope on Pritchard Hill, a part of Napa Valley known for it’s show stopping robust reds. Immediately intriguing on the bouquet, this wine shows aromas of honeysuckle and lemon meringue. It reveals a pleasing softness on the palate but with with a noticeable intensity of fruit driven flavors. Somewhat creamy in its textural feel, this wine drinks very well by itself.
The 2019 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon is 97% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot; this wine is deep ruby in color and opaque with a purplish rim in the glass; the bouquet initially offers aromas of cocoa powder, cassis and dark olive which soon makes way for ripe but not sweetly fruited notes of blackberry, boysenberry and blueberry. Background complementary scents include cinnamon, clove and other baking spices. The palate offers mouth-filling fruit focused both on richness and ripeness of flavor. These include notes of plum, blueberry and dark cherry. The tannins sport a dense textural profile but without a heavy grip. And they drop off on the finish as the fruit continues to persist for quite some time along with a light dry/earthy and tobacco spice character. Despite a listed 15.8% alcohol one doesn’t feel its warmth when swallowing. It was aged for 24 months in 100% new French oak barrels.
The 2018 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon is 95% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. This wine is deep ruby in color. The aromatics are immediately inviting and open knitted and include scents of dark plum, blackberry, bramble and some darker spices including a woodsy note (cedar), dried tobacco and dark chocolate. The aromas are layered with a savory character. This wine offers flavors of black cherry, dark raspberry with a lingering note of tobacco spice and a light earthy nuance. The tannins are smooth and rounded. Their texture is like being surrounded by a soft blanket, snuggled up to a warm fire on a rainy winter Santa Barbara afternoon. This wine drinks very comfortably due to its supple texture and balanced character.
The 2013 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon needs some time to open and reveal its layers of depth both on the bouquet and on the palate. Dark in the glass it shows a noticeable herbal or eucalyptus quality to the aroma which is subtle but not intense. As it opens, the wine reveals darker fruit and dark chocolate along with earthy notes and cigar smoke. It is also, somewhat meaty on the bouquet. It features plenty of depth on the palate focusing mostly on darker fruit flavors which are complemented by a wood spice and moderate structure on the finish.
The 2006 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon is slightly blended with 3% Malbec and 2% Petit Verdot. It is deep ruby in the glass with both red and purple characteristics. The bouquet shows a noticeable dustiness, with notes of shaded forest floor and cedar intermingled with dark fruit and red licorice. The palate leans decidedly towards blacker fruits including blackberry and dark plum. These flavors are broad, expansive and layered running the entire length from entry through the finish. This wine’s texture is rounded and elegant; the softer styled yet structured tannins are well integrated into the wines’ structure. Balance can be a key word used by wine writers, winemakers and others when describing wine. This wine has got it and not just partially – it is balanced beautifully from start to finish. We have sampled hundreds of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons on this project and it is always a joy to find a wine that fits our palate like a glove, like this bottling. All of Merus wines are built to age; the winery estimates this wine will last at least 3 decades. Perhaps so, but it is hard to resist drinking it now.
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Former winemaker Camille Benitah (who we met with during one of our visits to Merus) is a native of Bordeaux France and has extensive viticulture and enology experience in a number of European locations. She studied at Chateau La Tour Blanche in Bommes (Sauternes region) and worked at a number of various wineries in the area before moving to California.
Owner, William Foley has a background that reads like someone who has lived multiple lives. He is a graduate of West Point, has served in the Air Force and has both his MBA and law degrees. He has been Chairman of CKE (controls Carl’s Junior) where he helped turned that franchise around in part by appealing to younger generations. Currently he serves as Chairman of two Fortune 500 companies including Fidelity National Information Services, a major title company that is one of the largest in the nation. Also of note is his golfing ability; he was voted among the Top 20 Executive Golfers in a recent Golfer’s Digest Magazine.
Bill has enjoyed fine Cabernet Sauvignon for many years; his foray into the wine industry started in 1996 when he and his wife Carol purchased 1,000 acres in the Santa Rita Hills part of Santa Barbara County. They soon launched Lincourt Vineyards, named by combining the first few letters of their daughters first names, Lindsey and Courtney.
The Foley’s soon purchased several other wineries in the central coast and have since acquired both wineries, hotels and restaurants in other parts of California and overseas. In Napa Valley, Foley Family Wines & Spirits also owns Cosentino (the brand, not the former winery) Foley Johnson, Kuleto Estate, Swanson Vineyards and Silverado Vineyards. Previously, Foley Wine Estates operated Foley Food & Wine Society tasting room, which was located at the Vista Collina Resort, just south of the city of Napa (but closed in 2021).
Merus wine is made in the old Rossini Winery on the Rossini Ranch at the base of Howell Mountain. This part of Napa Valley was settled by several Swiss-Italian vintners including namesake Carlo Rossini who purchased property here prior to building Rossini Winery in 1891. He grew wine grapes, apples, prunes and raised animals on his land.
Nearby neighbor at the time, Albino Pestoni (also from Switzerland) built a small stone winery above what is now Bell Canyon Reservoir. In fact, according to a mention in the August 20, 1886 edition of The Napa Register, Rossini sold Pestoni 25 acres of land for the sum of $750. Rossini Winery was active until prohibition where like almost all of the other wineries in the valley was shut down. It remained shuttered from 1920 until it was sold to the Venge family in 2002.
During the Venge ownership a 7,000 square foot cave was tunneled into the hillside next to the old winery building overseen by Nordby Construction; the Venge’s also planted Zinfandel on the property in 2002 in homage to what Rossi had originally grown along with Petite Sirah. None of the grapes from these vines are used in the Merus wines – rather they are sold to another Napa winery. The Venge’s produced wines under their own brands here from 2003 until they sold the property in mid 2008 to Bill Foley.
One of Rossini’s granddaughters, Marilouise Kornell, the wife of Hans Kornell, the founder of Hans Kornell Champagne Cellars, lived near the winery for many years until she was in her 80s. Today, Marilouise and Hans’s daughter Paula Kornell produces her own wine, bottled as Paula Kornell Sparkling Wine.
Other notable landmarks on the property are a petrified wood bridge which dates from 1903 and is the only known surviving petrified wood bridge in Napa County. Not to be outdone by the bridge, is the outdoor brick oven. This oven is in excellent condition, it dates from 1882 and may be the oldest oven of its kind in the county.
Tastings at the winery are held in their elegant tasting salon and are for allocation list customers, by invitation or for serious wine enthusiasts by referral. Visits typically last about an hour including a tour of their caves and a barrel sample of their latest vintage. The cave is more than ample space for their limited production.
The tasting room is in a beautifully furnished large room within the cave; the eclectic chandeliers made out of hanging metal and unique lighting were contributed by Merus co-founder, Erika Gottl who was also the co-founder of Amsterdam based UXUS design firm. This company sold in 2013; with an international set of name-brand clients they maintain offices in Amsterdam, London and New York. The Merus “Altvs Alcove” houses a number of previous vintages all with formidable Robert Parker quotes from each vintage painted above the wine.
Merus Wines are found in fine restaurants in select locations nationwide including CA, FL, NV, NY and other states. One can sometimes find their wine locally at Cole’s Chop House in the city of Napa or at the Oakville Grocery. And select Merus wines, including sometimes older vintages, are also available at the two Foley owned The Society tasting rooms – one in Santa Barbara and the other in Healdsburg.
Select library wines are sold through their website, often up to 10 years old. For more information, to request an appointment and or to sign up for their mailing list, visit: www.meruswines.com
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