#WAMerlot Twitter Tasting

Last night I participated in a great event at Otis Kenyon Wine.  Muriel coordinated a fabulous evening to tie in with the global tasting of Washington State Merlots, one of the wines that made the Walla Walla Valley famous in the mid-90's.  While merlot fell out of fashion in the 2000's what with that silly Sideways movie, it is certainly pushing its way to the forefront once again.

There were about 30 Washington merlots present at the tasting I attended from over 20 wineries.  They were mostly Walla Walla wineries, but we did have a couple of wines from other areas of Washington tossed into the mix.  If you have not participated in a varietal tasting of this nature before I would strongly suggest you do.  It was amazing to see how different and unique all of the merlots were even within the same vintage or from the same vineyards.

While there were many standouts present last night, two wines in particular made a huge impression on me. The first was the 2006 Seven Hills WWV Merlot from Otis Kenyon.  This wine was specfreakintacular!  The mouth was huge and rich, ripe with chocolate, lilac and violets.  The other wine I was very partial to was the 2007 Seven Hills Estate Merlot from L'Ecole No. 41.  This wine was spicey and sweet and full of dark cherries and earth.  Very beautiful mouth feel.  In the end my favorite of the evening was the Otis Kenyon, but both of these wines deserve some serious attention!

To learn more about last night, check out my Twitter account to follow the action.  You can also check out the notes and Vlog from the Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman from last night and see some great pictures by Matthew Zimmerman.  Thanks to everyone who participated in the event last night, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I!