The first red fruit of 2026 went into the hopper on Monday morning, and it was Merlot. A whole generation of drinkers learned to skip this grape, and what actually hurt it had less to do with a movie than with where it got planted and how hard it got cropped.
- First red fruit of 2026 went in Monday — Merlot, cool and aromatic.
- Merlot picks first because Merlot ripens first.
- A movie didn’t kill Merlot; bad sites and heavy crops did.
- On the Bliss Vineyard valley floor, Merlot is plush and generous.
- Worth another look — it becomes Torrent and Legacy Merlot.
Monday morning, a little past eight, the first red fruit of 2026 went into the hopper. Merlot. It came in cool from the night, dark and aromatic, and by the time the bin tipped, free-run juice with purplish and red hues flowed down the stainless. Plums and red fruit aromas fill the air—that’s the smell of red harvest starting.
Merlot goes first for us because Merlot is ready first. It sets earlier, it ripens earlier, and it doesn’t make you wait the way Cabernet Sauvignon will. The acid was where I wanted it, the seeds had gone brown and nutty, and the skins gave up their color when I chewed them. So we picked.
Now here’s where I get on my soapbox. People will tell you a movie killed Merlot. I don’t buy it. What hurt Merlot happened before the movie. Merlot got popular, and the industry did what the industry does—planted it everywhere, including a lot of ground it had no business being on, and cropped it hard because there was money in tonnage. Put Merlot on a cold, heavy site, hang twice the crop you should on it, pick it on a sugar number, and you get a green, hollow wine with a bell-pepper streak running through it. Drinkers noticed. They weren’t wrong. The movie writers just said out loud what a lot of people had already tasted.
None of that was the grape’s fault. Merlot on the right ground, cropped honestly, is one of the most generous reds you can make—plush, dark-fruited, round but not slack. And it likes it here. Ours sits on the valley floor at Bliss Vineyard: warm days, reddish loam over gravel, real drainage, and a cool night to hold the acid. Ask anybody who’s been in our wine club twenty-five years what got them in the door. A lot of them will say Merlot.
The fruit goes two places from here. Most of it becomes Torrent, our Merlot-led blend with Cabernet Sauvignon and a touch of Syrah. The best barrels of the best years become the Legacy Collection Merlot—twenty-eight months in oak, and a back label that tells you whose life the wine is named for.
We still have a little Merlot hanging out at Bliss Vineyard and it’s close. Zinfandel and Primitivo are next, probably a couple of weeks out. But Monday was the day the reds started, and they started with the grape everybody wrote off. If you were one of them, I get it. Pour a good one anyway. I think Merlot has earned another look, and I’d like ours to be the one that changes your mind.
– Hoss Milone
Winemaker, Brutocao Family Vineyards
Did You Know
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are half-siblings. Both are children of Cabernet Franc. Cabernet Franc crossed with Sauvignon Blanc gives you Cabernet Sauvignon; crossed with an old Bordeaux variety called Magdeleine Noire des Charentes, it gives you Merlot. So the grape that came in Monday and the grape a lot of people reach for instead of it share a parent.
Featured Wine
Two Ways Into Our Merlot
The fruit that came in Monday is years from a bottle. These two are ready now, from the same ground and two levels of selection. Torrent is our Merlot-led blend with Cabernet Sauvignon and a touch of Syrah — star anise, blackberry, and espresso, eighteen months in barrel, and the one to put on the table. The Legacy Collection Merlot is the best barrels of the year, twenty-eight months in oak, with dark plum, mocha, and a plush frame built to age, bottled as a tribute to one of the people who built this place.
