I realized I haven’t tried my ‘Embarcadero’ Dry Creek Valley Merlot yet.  This wine is 100% merlot “B” (fermented with Pasteur red yeast) aged with french oak (heavy + medium toast, cubes in carboy) with incomplete MLF but treated with lysozyme.

This wine has been in the bottle 18 months.  I tasted it in a Spiegelau Bordeaux glass, first without any decanting or aeration.  It is very sweet and spicy on the nose, with rich brambles and berries.  Very clear garnet in color.  Sweet on the tongue as well, with brown sugar, cedar, spice box, cassis, and currant with hint of fig and menthol on the long finish.  Not quite balanced, very heavy on the spice and sweetness.

Retasted after aeration with Vinturi.  Still spicy and sweet on the nose, though a bit mellowed.  Flavors still unbalanced though more mellowed.  This wine is tasting very similar to the ‘Belmont Park’ version of this merlot, heavily sweet and out of balance;  I think a lot of the sweetness might be due to too much oak.  Hopefully these 2009 merlots are going through a phase and will come out of it in a few months.  Right now, not tasting their best.