Published by Jeremy.
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One of the joys of having a robust wine cellar at home is you can start to forget about bottles you've purchased. Sometimes this is on purpose to let bottles age. Other times it is simply because you have too much wine and opt to wait for a perfect pairing to come along.
For us, this often happens with varietals that we don't drink too much of regularly, and we acquire a bottle, forget about it, forget about it some more, and then the next thing you know it is a decade old. Heron Hill's Reserve Merlot from 2016 was one such bottle. We purchased it directly from the winery on one of our first trips to the Finger Lakes and promptly forgot about it for years.
It was worth the (accidental) wait.
Finger Lakes Merlot Better With Age
This 10-year-old Merlot was pale ruby in color with medium aromas of dried red cherry, vanilla, caramel, clove, red raspberry, cacao, tobacco, dried herbs, cassis, and violet.
On the palate, it was dry with medium acidity, smooth tannin, alcohol, body, and flavor intensity plus a medium(+) finish. After opening up, this one had flavors of dried red cherry, dried cranberry, raspberry, cedar, wet stone, wet leaves, caramel, clove (a lot of clove), and a forest floor / mushroom finish.
Although this wine seemed to be hitting decent development with the medium acidity and tannin, we really appreciated the spectrum of flavors here from fresh fruit notes to dried fruits and forest floor character all around. There was a lot going on here!
Merlot Food Pairing – Polenta with Mushrooms
We paired this Merlot with polenta topped with mushrooms and finished with taleggio cheese and truffle oil as we thought the aged, earthy characteristics in the wine would go nicely with the decadent mushroom and truffle-forward flavors in this entree.
Although we did have a nice spike of fruit notes with this pairing, particularly plum and blueberry, it was the pairing with the taleggio in particular that really caused this wine to sing that helped accentuate the smooth, silky tannin and mouthfeel in the wine in addition to the flavor spike. An excellent combo!
Score: 3.5 / 5
We'd buy a glass of this one and another bottle if we could get some age on it.
Overall, this Merlot hit all the right notes to us with a balance of fresh and dried fruits and tertiary character starting to show, like forest floor, slight mushroom, and caramel. It is likely we could've let this one age even further; however, given that the acidity and tannins seemed to be dropping, we are quite pleased to have caught this one at a good spot on its development arc. As such, we'd always buy a glass, and would get another bottle if we could put some age on it.
Heron Hill is located at 9301 Co Rd 76 in Hammondsport, NY. We purchased this bottle directly from the winery and enjoyed it in 2026.
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