A Tasty, Ubiquitous Merlot

As we gear up to try a lot of new French wine this weekend we've returned to our old ways, the California wines, with a 2002 Toasted Head Merlot ($14). Toasted Head is a bottle that I've seen a million times but never tried or just don't remember ever trying (I'm sure I downed some of it at a party at some point, but before I started the blog I never tracked the good ones much). The bottle is memorable for its label, which features an amusing fire-breathing bear. Toasted Head is made by R.H. Phillips, a company founded by the Giguiere family. (The Giguiere brothers, John and Karl, named their business in honor of their grandfather, R.H. Phillips, a wheat farmer.)
R.H. Phillips was part of a wine corporation called Vincor International, which sounds nameless and faceless and seems to own a good deal of the wine planet. (In fact, they are the eighth largest producer and distributor of wine, including labels such as Kim Crawford and Hogue.) As I write this I've discovered that R.H. Phillips is no longer owned by Vincor. but by Constellation Brands, a $5 billion beverage company that bought Vincor on Monday, making Toasted head part of an ever more bloated Kraft-style wine dynasty that includes everything from Ravenswood wine to Corona beer to Skol Vodka.
Got that straight? Back to the wine.
Toasted Head wine is made from grapes grown in the Dunnigan Hills, which is about 30 miles east of Calistoga, CA. Toasted Head gets its name not from some stoner winedrinker but from the winemaker's use of toasted-head oak barrels. According to the company's wine site, they use the best fruit for Toasted Head wines and use the rest for their "value priced" wines under the RH Phillips Label. I don't usually drink a lot of Merlot because it can be dull as dirt, but this one is not. It's got some complexity to it. It smells earthy and spicey and tastes of cherry and vanilla. I also tasted a little liquorice. This is a balanced wine with a nice lingering oak finish. The PIT (Partner in Tasting) liked it, too He said "it smells different" than a typical merlot. I give it 2 1/2 stars because it's definitely a notch above your average table wine. Here's someone who agrees with me.

April 5, 2006

A Tasty, Ubiquitous Merlot

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