If you’re thinking, “I’ve never seen a Merlot from Featherstone,” you’d be right. This is the first vintage from these 3 year old vines and they produced so little fruit in 2006 that only 60 cases of this wine was made. Louise Engel, co-owner, told me that each vine produced one cluster and they meticulously hand harvested every one (the good news is 2007 was a completely different story for these vines – producing enough fruit to get 500 cases made – but we’ll save that review for next year at this time). The wine spent 15 months in French oak and has developed a mixture of blackberries and red fruit on the nose. The palate has sour cherry and juicy blackberries with some cassis and a little tannin bite on the finish. Quite lovely and a good first effort with this grape from Dave Johnson (winemaker).