2023
Pahlmeyer Merlot
New Release
The 2023 Pahlmeyer Merlot is dynamic and captivating: layered and nuanced, revealing its depth and power over time. Aromas of new saddle leather, violet, and a hint of Castelvetrano olive give way to brambly blackberry, fresh plum, and dark raspberry. On the palate, the wine is densely flavorful yet remarkably fresh, with a concentrated core of dark fruit — black plum, raspberry, blackberry — framed by fine grained tannins. Dusty cocoa and subtle earthiness emerge as the wine opens, while vibrant acidity drives expansiveness and energy. The finish is long and lifted, with echoes of dark chocolate and warm spice. While the fruit is tightly wound in its youth, this wine is drinking beautifully. Decant for several hours before serving or enjoy it over the course of a few days to experience how it opens and evolves. A collector’s vintage, this wine will age gracefully for up to three decades in the cellar. – Katie Vogt, Winemaker
100% Merlot
- Winemaker
- Katie Vogt
- Alcohol
- 14.7%%
- Harvested Start Date
- September 28, 2023
- Harvested End Date
- October 20, 2023
- Bottled Date
- May 2025
- Release Date
- March 2026
Winemaking Notes
We hand harvested each of our high-elevation sites in the cool of night. At the winery, the clusters were meticulously hand sorted and destemmed, with only the most perfect berries delivered to tank. Fruit was gently and slowly extracted, spending extended time on skins. Free-run juice was then collected overnight and aged separately from press cuts. We aged the wine in 84% new and 16% one-year-used heavy-toast Taransaud barrels for 17 months. Select lots, showcasing the pure, distinct personality of each vineyard site, were carefully blended to achieve a complete, dynamic wine that captures the finest articulation of mountain fruit. The wine was bottled without fining or filtering in May 2025, then allowed additional bottle age before release.
Katie Vogt describes the wines as incredibly elegant, yet built like a hardcore ballerina—strong, focused, driven by tension, and utterly beautiful. This Merlot delivers beautifully ripe plum and black cherry fruit, layered with gorgeous mountain-berry intensity and forest-berry flavours, accented by a redwood nuance. It’s velvety and structured, unfurling in extravagant waves of dark-berry fruit, with ultra-fine, expansive tannins. They verge on bitterness at this stage, but there’s a compelling tightness here that promises the wine will unwind and unfold with time, revealing real personality. I’d wait to pull corks until around 2027.
