The world needs more delicious Petite Sirahs. Had this on a sunny Saturday afternoon in January around the firepit…appropriate place for the wine. Boysenberry, black pepper, blueberry, cinnamon. 50% new French oak and skilled winemaking take away the wine’s hard edges while keeping the concentration. Inky wine. Inky-dinky production.
A Mom & Pop winery if there ever was one, Merisi is owned by Mandy and Nick Donovan. Mandy is the winegrower of the pair. (A wine-making veteran, she tends the vines and makes the wines while keeping her day job at a larger Napa winery). I like how their wines marry delicious, lip-smacking fruit with a soulful, earthy middle.
From the winery: “(Merisi) is named after the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio. Passionate realism is but one way that Caravaggio’s art has been described. His style led to a sense of rawness and true understanding of the scene, pulling you into the painting. A style distinctive from his contemporaries.”
