Four of Merry Edwards' Roster of Pinot Noirs from 2021

Consistent Style, Different Tone and Timbre

This quartet of pinot noir wines from Merry Edwards — one regional, three single-vineyard — just begins to open the catalog of pinot noirs the winery produces every year (as well as an estimable sauvignon blanc, a few chardonnays and a rare dessert wine). It will, however, serve as an introduction to the manner, which winemaker Heidi von der Mehden carries on from her mentor, Merry Edwards herself, who sold the whole kit-and-kaboodle to Champagne Louis Roederer in 2019. That manner is depth, darkness, intensity and concentration rather than — a legitimate alternative fashion — lightness, fleetness, ethereality. Within the parameters of the idea, the philosophy of Merry Edwards, von der Mehden is making excellent and exceptional wines; it’s always with a sense of keen anticipation that I open a box of samples from this winery. Being limited in production, deriving from vineyards carefully tended according to organic or biodynamic principles, meticulously watched over in the winery, these are of necessity not cheap wines. Collectors with the proper cellars for perfect storage, however, line up at the door.