#1 Top 100 Wines of  the USA ~ 2024 edition by James Suckling 
#96 Wine Spectator Top 100 (2012 edition - 2009 vintage)
98-Points by James Suckling.
Delicious, velvety and mouth-filling, this wine could convert any merlot skeptic to being a fan. Mountain grown in the Stagecoach Vineyard and Waters Vineyard, it is intense and saturated with flavor, but wrapped in luscious tannins that tempt you to drink it now. Blueberries, creme de cassis, cherries, cream and mint.
Blend: 100% Merlot, aged 18 months in 90% new French Oak.
 
Winemaking Notes
Katie Vogt
Our high-elevation Merlot blocks were hand-harvested at their most expressive moment. At the winery, the clusters were meticulously hand sorted and destemmed — with only the most perfect berries delivered to the tank. Fruit was gently and slowly extracted, spending up to 18 days on skins. Free-run juice was then collected overnight and aged separately from press cuts. We aged the wine in 89% new French oak barrels for 18 months. After careful blending of select lots, the wine was bottled in June 2023 for additional bottle age before release.
Pahlmeyer was founded in 1986, by a desire to be great by its eponymous creator Jayson Pahlmeyer. With a dream to create a California Mouton, Jayson and his partners spared no resource to make this dream a reality. Whether it was finding the perfect piece of land high atop Napa Valley’s Atlas Peak or covertly smuggling in Bordeaux cuttings, all pieces of Pahlmeyer’s history have led to its place as one of the top brand names from Napa Valley. From the very beginning, Pahlmeyer has been dedicated to crafting fine wines from the best fruit sources possible. In California, this means high elevation mountain sites, where the grapes are afforded more sunlight, cooler temperatures, and less fertile soils, which together create ideal conditions. Pahlmeyer sources the majority of their fruit from four key locations: Pahlmeyer Estate (Atlas Peak), Stagecoach (Atlas Peak / Pritchard Hill), Rancho Chimiles, and Antica.