Smidge Merlot Le Grenouille

This bad boy is still bursting with fruit, but there is a reserved, delicate complexity as well. The wine is starting to develop a rim of golden-orange but still has a cherry-red core. The secondary characteristics of fruit cake spices, fresh thyme sprigs and dusty earth are now working well with the ripe strawberry and glacé cherry fruits. The palette is chock full of flavour and the layering of the new and the old is just perfect at the moment. …

Lashings of dark fruit and spice on the nose, and a super-soft, fine tannic finish, with chocolate and briar. So soft it's almost sweet. Very complex and deep for a cheap 100% merlot. Looking forward to cracking some more of these over the next two to four years.

Aromas of dark cherries and plums, cedary spice and hints of bitter chocolate. An incredibly complex and layered wine for a Merlot at this price.

Ruby red in colour. Aromas of peppers, plum and berries with a hint of supporting oak in the background. The palate is strongly fruit driven with more berry flavours and spice. Excellent complexity and balance between fruit, oak and tannin throughout the length of the wine. Very good and a superb match for food. Drinking Window: Drink over the next 5 years.