2013 Robert Keenan Winery Merlot Reserve Mailbox Vineyard Spring Mountain District 750 ml

“The best Merlot we’ve ever pulled off the Mailbox Vineyard” — Michael Keenan

In 1989, Robert Keenan organized a taste-off pitting his Spring Mountain Merlot against Pomerol’s Château Petrus. Most considered Keenan’s tasting to be laughable, something right out of a Barnum & Bailey circus act. After all, Château Petrus — comprised entirely of Merlot — is the most sought-after red wine in the world, while Keenan’s entry was unknown. But those who had called Keenan a huckster — or far worse — before the tasting held their tongues after the scores were tallied.

There are very few places in Napa Valley where Merlot can be as rich and powerfully structured as Cabernet Sauvignon. One spot is Howell Mountain, though many of those plantings have now been ripped out, thanks to a market moved by the movie “Sideways” and its main character’s caustic dismissal of the grape. The second is a tiny parcel perched 1,700 feet up Spring Mountain Road, where cool nights conspire with rugged soils to push out a small crop of some of the most succulent small-berry fruit in the valley. The Keenans call that planting “Mailbox” — the same vineyard that wiped the smiles off skeptical faces back in 1989.

In what Robert Parker would eventually call the “greatest vintage I’ve tasted in 37 years,” Michael Keenan crafted just 400 cases of the most concentrated, full-throttle Spring Mountain Merlot to date. If one had to imagine a perfect growing season on Spring Mountain, you’d be hard-pressed to write a better script than 2013. The weather was gorgeous and dry from bud break to flowering to harvest, with temperatures reaching into the 90s, setting the stage for a healthy, perfectly even fruit-set through to pristine conditions during harvest.

“I’m convinced this is the best Merlot we’ve ever pulled off the Mailbox Vineyard,” Michael Keenan told us. “The grapes were purple, and right before harvest, they turned from purple to black.” Keenan couldn’t remember a vintage in which a second veraison had occurred. He made the call to harvest when sugar levels came it at 24 Brix; that’s when “we really see flavors develop,” he said.

Parker has called Keenan’s handiwork “Merlot at its most complex” and “one of the top examples of this varietal in Northern California.” We think Keenan’s 2013 Mailbox Merlot is the best wine produced at 3660 Spring Mountain Road in recent history, and rank it in the same class as Cakebread, PlumpJack and Duckhorn’s Three Palms. Keenan’s 2013 is his most concentrated Merlot yet, with extra layers of complexity, bolstered by remarkable tannin and acid structure, making for a decidedly Cabernet-like Mailbox Merlot. In his vintage report, Parker praised the 2013s, calling them “powerful, rich and concentrated … extremely well-delineated,” expecting them to “be extremely long-lived, eclipsing even the aging potential of the 2012s.”

Beautiful deep-ruby color. Lavish aromas of black fruits, black cherry, crushed violets, mocha, and whiffs of tobacco. Sumptuously rich, filled with pure, dark-berry fruit flavors bolstered by spectacular Right Bank minerality that combines with savory Spring Mountain garrigue, while superbly fine-grained, chalky tannin and juicy acidity suggests a tasting window between now and 2035. The Wine Advocate praised Keenan’s 2013 Mailbox Merlot as showing “beautiful fruit, medium to full body,” with “more layers of concentration and interest than the basic Merlot.”

94 points from Parker. $70 from the winery. $59 today — as if discounting even matters for what Michael Keenan calls “the best Merlot we’ve ever pulled off the Mailbox Vineyard.” Only 120 bottles remain. Don't wait!