JebDunnuck.com

• By Jeb Dunnuck
  Latest Releases from Washington State, 4/5/2018 (link)

  (Delille Cellars Merlot) Subscribe to see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull DeLille, 11/28/2018

  (DeLille Cellars Merlot) Hello friends. Today we have only the second-ever DeLille offer in Full Pull’s history. I’m delighted that the folks at this special Washington winery are willing to allow our list members access to some of their lovely wines. DeLille was founded in Woodinville in 1992 by Charles Lil, Greg Lil, Jay Soloff, and Chris Upchurch. To set the scene, at that point there were exactly four wineries in Woodinville. Two are still around today (Ste Michelle and Columbia), and two are gone (French Creek and Facelli). So DeLille is the third-oldest winery still operating in Woodinville, and they essentially pioneered the boutique winery movement in the area. They were also among the first to make and promote Bordeaux blends, and among the first to consider items in the vineyard like row orientation (previously many of the vineyards were oriented to match the surrounding roads), spacing, and clonal selection. Pioneers to be sure, and 25 years in, the wines are better than ever. We have a terrific trio today:Special treat here for two reasons: first, this is normally a club-only bottling for DeLille; and second, we’re able to offer this Merlot at well off its $49 release price. It has been made clear to me over the past few weeks, with successful offers of $10 and $50 Merlots, that the tide is *finally* beginning to turn for this grossly-underappreciated, unfairly-out-of-fashion variety, and you can bet we’ll be continuing to seek out the best Merlots coming out of Washington State. Including this beauty, which is a near-equal split of fruit from a quarter of vineyard heavyweights: Upchurch and Klipsun on Red Mountain, and Red Willow and Dubrul in the greater Yakima Valley. Aged for just shy of two years in 60% new French oak, this clocks in at 14.3% listed alc and opens with an expressive nose of deep black cherry fruit, soil, café au lait, and high-cacao chocolate. The palate is texturally gorgeous, offering Merlot’s saturating fruit generosity paired to sneaky Red Mountain power, in the form of tannins that emerge on the finish and beautifully balance all the plush red fruit. With time and air, wonderful cooling mineral tones emerged, another complexity auguring well for a successful evolution in bottle. This could totally work with bigger beef and pork dishes, but today it had me in mind of a crispy duck confit with a potato gratin and braised mustard greens. The ’14 vintage earned a 93pt review from Tanzer, but he has not yet weighed in on this vintage.