Getting It Right, Finally

Duckhorn's Three Palms Vineyard Merlot comes from one of those individual vineyard sites that increases the value of and the demand for a wine.  (Probably only Heitz's Martha's Vineyard is more famous.)  Three Palms was first produced by Duckhorn in 1978, and since then it has represented tradition and dependability.  I have only one problem with it.  The wine is not particularly good.

For decades, Duckhorn's Cabernets have been better than its Merlots.  Among its Merlots, other bottlings are often superior to Three Palms.

I recently tried Duckhorn's 2004 Migration, a $30 Pinot Noir.  I can't recall being more thrilled by a Duckhorn wine.  It was polished and balanced, bright and bouncy, an exemplary Pinot Noir with a smidgen of Burgundy-like earthiness.  It was everything a California Pinot Noir should be, and it came at a more-than-fair price.

Migration doesn't appear to be particularly important to Duckhorn.  You have to poke around the winery website before it pops up as the secondary wine of Goldeneye, its more expensive Pinot Noir.  It is somewhat disparagingly referred to as "a lighter alternative to the rich, structured" Goldeneye.  Even the name, which refers to the migration of goldeneye ducks, isn't that complimentary.  In other words, if you can't get or afford the Goldeneye Pinot Noir, Migration will do.

There's a pattern here.  Goldeneye, the wine with the fancy pedigree, is celebrated.  Ditto for Three Palms Vineyard Merlot.  There's a lesson here, too.  Quite often wineries do their best work when they don't take themselves so seriously.