Say what you like about Merlot – and who hasn't? – but it's hard to beat for sheer consistency.
Merlot isn't really a love it or hate it proposition, but it does polarize the wine public somewhat, as we might havementioned before. Indeed, it's hard to write aboutMerlotwithout referencing the disconnect between the general wine consumer (very much in favor of Merlot) and the "professional" wine drinker, who is often more ambivalent about it.
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There is, of course, absolutely no reason not to love Merlot and its dependability is a major reason for its popularity among consumers. And for dependability, read consistency – there are few lists that will be as consistent as the one below. It has the same wines as last year, just in a different order, and seven of these wines were on the corresponding list in 2018.
However, even with Merlot, consistency goes only so far and there is one thing that hasn't stayed the same since last year, as we'll explain shortly.
Let's get the rules out of the way first. You'll notice on some of the lists that the wines do not appear to be ranked in numerical order, according to scores, but trust us, they are. For example, two wines with scores of 96 and 95 are seemingly outscored by a clutch of 94-pointers.
These apparent anomalies occur because we weight the aggregated critic score according to how many scores each wine has received. So, a wine with an aggregated score of 93 points across 100 reviews will be rated higher than one with a score of 93 across 50 reviews. Similarly, wines with an ostensibly higher score across a lower number of reviews will not be ranked as high.
And finally, we have added more critics in the last 12 months, so this year's "best of" series will be more comprehensive than ever.
The World's Best Merlots on Wine-Searcher:| Wine Name | Score | Ave Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petrus, Pomerol | 97 | $4087 | |
| Masseto, Toscana IGT | 95 | $936 | |
| Kapcsándy State Lane Vineyard Roberta's Reserve, Napa Valley | 95 | $419 | |
| Le Pin, Pomerol | 95 | $3947 | |
| Le Macchiole Messorio, Toscana IGT | 94 | $213 | |
| Castello di Ama L'Apparita, Toscana IGT | 94 | $208 | |
| Tua Rita Redigaffi, Toscana IGT | 94 | $236 | |
| San Giusto a Rentennano La Ricolma, Toscana IGT | 94 | $196 | |
| Miani Buri, Colli Orientali del Friuli | 96 | $320 | |
| Miani Merlot, Colli Orientali del Friuli | 95 | $284 |
As mentioned above, the wines are the same as last year, but with a couple of notable exceptions. First is the Kapcsándy wine elbowing the patrician Le Pin out of the way to nudge ahead into the bronze medal position. That's quite a performance against a wine that costs almost 10 times as much.
The other notable change is La Ricolma, which has slipped from fifth spot to eighth since last year. That's no reflection on the quality of the wine, however, more a tribute to the wines that nudged past it. And the big performance improvement came from the Miani wines; they retain their ninth and 10th positions, but their aggregated scores have risen from 94 apiece to 96 for the Buri cuvée and 95 for its stablemate.
Price is the only place where consistency falls away, somewhat. In the past year, the total cost of a bottle of each (based on global average price) has risen from $9548 to $10,846, a 13.6 percent increase. That's pretty hefty, but mostly it is as a result of strong rises in the global average prices for Petrus and Le Pin, which have seen their prices go up by about $500 and $600 a bottle, respectively. That means the actual level of increase for theItalianwines has been negligible, while theNapawine has only seen a $5 increase in its global average per-bottle price.
In a wine world where crazy price hikes are becoming the norm, sometimes it's nice to know there is one bottle of wine that will remain dependably – if relatively – sane. Long may that continue.
