1999 Luna Vineyards Merlot Napa Valley -- a forgotten cellar orphan that someone brought to dinner a few years ago, I found this yesterday. Tthe back label shows this to be an atypical blend of 80% Merlot, 11% Sangiovese, and the rest Cab Franc; that immediately made it interesting to me. It also indicates that the wine was fermented with indigenous yeasts and is made by John Kongsgaard (and Kelly Wheat), who has some pretty impressive credentials; I was prompted by this to give this wine a bit of attention.

Still dark red with no bricking at all, it looks young; nice fruity nose, raspberry and chocolate; firm in the mouth, with surprising acidity (I'm guessing from the Sangiovese) that holds up the fairly concentrated raspberry, cherry, coffee, dark chocolate flavors, not painfully intense but certainly palate-filling; quite a bit of tannin kicks in at the end and actually outlasts the fruit on the finish. A very nice wine that is excellent until the finish. App. 90-91 pts. Has the acidity and concentration to go a while yet, but those drying tannins suggest to me that tonight is a good time to drink these up.

Seaquam,

Nice note. I finished my 3rd and last bottle of this wine in August. I also noted (and liked) the complexity the Sangiovese and Cab Frank added to the blend.

PH

Aaaaahh!

I did a search to see whether there were any previous threads on this wine, but PH's comment above made me look again. I think I searched the Dining and Cooking forum instead of Tasting Notes. There are, in fact, 2 earlier threads: one is here and the other is here.

Apologies to all.

It may not have been you. I just did a search for another note using 3 keywords (vintage, producer & wine name) and the TN didn't come up. I found the note another way?

PH

I bought some of this a few years back, and I just looked at my cellar list, and I also have an orphan bottle...

So I now now what to have tomorrow night..

Thanks for the notes