"The Mistress of Merlot," Kimberlee Nicholls of Markham Vineyards

Hello, and thank you for watching the wine centric show where we tantalize your taste buds and talk with titans of the industry. Joining us today from the Napa Valley, one of the top winemakers in the Valley and the mistress of Merlot, miss Kimberly Nichols.

Thank you, Matthew. Welcome. It's very little introduction. Thank you.

I want to get right into it before we get to the we'll get to the fluff stuff later, but why are you here? Because you have been making wines at Markham, since 2,000 and 1. Right?

That's correct.

That's correct. You are one of the premier winemakers in in the Napa Valley. Markham Vineyards goes back all the way to 8 18/79 and has a rich history of really one of the most historic wineries in the Napa Valley.

Thank you. Yeah. It's quite a history. I mean, I love it. You know, out here on the West Coast, we don't have a whole lot of history.

So when you have a little bit and you're able to share it, it's, it's fantastic. Yeah. Out here on the west coast. Where are you from originally? I grew up in the Pacific Northwest.

My parents didn't actually really drink a whole lot of wine,

but they drink much better now.

I bet it did they not drink just because they weren't into it? Was it financial reasons or they No,

I mean, they, they drank things that came from a box or,

They just didn't know any better.

They just didn't know about wine. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's fun to teach them. And at this point, they're not, they don't drink that much anymore at all. So my mom loves Sauvignon Blanc, so that's her favorite of my wines.

Okay. Is that the reason you make Sauvignon Blanc?

It is not the reason we've made Sauvignon Blanc since I started here 32 years ago.

Yeah. So you started there 32 years ago. We're going to get into all this stuff about why Markham does what they do. But even to take a step backwards, the fact that you're a winemaker in the Napa Valley, I want to touch on one thing because you started off at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, one of the historic properties of Napa Valley, one of the wineries that put us on the map. If you haven't heard of it, Google it and look at the tasting of Paris from 1976, because they were one of the wines that was included in that.

And the person who was included there was Warren Winiarski. Did you get a chance to work with him?

I did. I mean, Warren was there the, the 4 years that I was there and he unfortunately just passed away this year. But yeah, really may he rest in peace. Very brilliant mind came to winemaking and I really admire, him, and I valued my time there at Stegsley.

Yeah. He was big about, obviously, Cabernet Sauvignon. A lot of the Napa Valley winemakers back in the day, you tell me if I'm getting this right, They wanted to focus on single varietals and just do Cabernet Sauvignon, but based on a Bordeaux model where it's very much the blend. So is that where you got your passion for Merlot?

Actually, that was the first wine that I fell in red wine that I fell in love with at Stag Sleep was their Merlot, and they weren't known for Merlot. So it's, I think, coincidental in the sense that that's what I make the most of here at Markham now. Because there were all of their red wines are fantastic. So, it's a beautiful location of the winery. And it was really, I'm, I'm glad that I had that as kind of that background of knowledge to bring to Markham when I came here.

Yeah. So you came to Markham, like we said, started in 18/79. You had then Bruce Markham, reinvent the winery, so to speak, for more modern times. Merlot was first planted in the 19 eighties there.

The first Merlot that Markham made was in 1980. And, coincidentally, it came from the Fay Vineyard, which Warren Winiarski actually purchased from Nathan Fay. And so it's like, it's all this full circle things, I think, that come out certainly in my life, but that have meaning. So we just celebrated in 2020 was the fortieth vintage of making Merlot. And I had the opportunity to get that exact same fruit and make a bottling from it.

And so for me, it was super exciting. And, those are kind of the, the special things that when you have a job or longevity, you know, when you're able to do those kind of things and make something that means something to you, I think that that really comes through in the wine that you make and, and shines through. So it's fun.

So when you say you got to use the same fruit, you're meaning like the exact same vines that were used in that first vintage are still alive and thriving?

They were. They are no more. Okay. After we got after we got the fruit, that I think that was the year that, Nathan's wife passed away and the property sold. And so, and they pushed the vines over, but I was able to get fruit from that vineyard in 2021 and 2020.

We had fires here, so was unable to, actually get the fruit for our actual 40th anniversary. But when we released the 2021 Staggs Leak Merlot that we made, was the 45th anniversary of making wine. So Bruce Markham started making wine in 1978 in this building.

Great year, 1978. Great year for growing humans. The, the wines was okay. I just aged myself. Wait, so, okay.

Is that wine still available to purchase or was it all sold out?

We are holding a little bit of, in the tasting room. I don't know how much is available unless you know someone.

Okay. Well, okay. Everybody who's listening to this, who knows something about wine this whole time is saying to themselves, why Merlot? People who are maybe novices or not even novices, they know the Napa Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon. And if you didn't start drinking wine till, like, the 2000 or something like that, then you're probably like, oh, Merlot's like, nobody wants Merlot.

I don't I don't I don't why would I drink Merlot? Because, of course, we had the sideways effect. Well, if anybody orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any fucking Merlot. I know it's cliche at this point, but if you're not aware, there was this great movie by written by Alexander Payne starring Paul Giamatti about wine or had a lot to do with wine, and they they panned Merlot.

We can get more into why, but that movie seriously had effect on Merlot sales. And that's like the movie came out in o four. Your fit first vintage was 2,001. You must have been like, holy shit. What happened here?

You know, I actually wasn't because our sales never did. But I think, you know, kind of going back to the movie Sideways, I read the book first. And so I think the book tells you what cherubel blanc is. And most people, if you don't know, it's a Merlot Cabernet Franc base blend. But, you know, when you've been making Merlot, as long as Markham has, then you're probably growing Merlot in the right locations.

And, you know, you understand how to vinify it, you know, not only grow it, but make it in the winery in a way that I think is really just beautiful, sexy, lush wine. Whereas in the mid 1990s, Merlot was super popular and everyone was, was making it and planting Merlot in the wrong locations. And so Merlot is a much bigger berry, bigger cluster than say Cabernetas. Cabernetas fairly, it's a, it's sturdier grape. It has thicker skins.

And some Merlot, you have to romance it. Not only when you're growing it out in the field, but also when it comes into the winery here. And so if you are thinking that you can just do the same thing by growing Merlot in any sort of location, it's not true. You need to make sure that you're growing it in the right location and taking care to get what you want out of the wine.

I love that you said that. And so I want to break that down for people who maybe are listening. They're like, well, what are you talking about? I can just if I want Pinot Noir, I'll just land Pinot Noir. And then, you know, so this is one of my tenets of wine.

And when I teach people about wine, I talk about this all the time. And I said, you know, great wine starts in the vineyard and winemakers like yourself and a lot of wineries that I represent in my day job. It's about the winemaker would rather farm great grapes and do as little as possible in the winery. Because if you start with a great grape, you have a much better chance for making great wine. And so a bigger part of that is what we call terroir and where you plant it and certain grapes like you were talking about, Cabernet, Merlot.

I mentioned Pinot Noir. They like different weathers, different exposures from the sun. And the other thing that's super important that affects all that is soil types. I know we like us wine professionals. We say this and I see people in their eyes glaze over and they're like, what do I care what's in the ground?

Like, who cares? You know? Well, guess what? It it affects the resulting wine. So one of the most obvious examples, if you hear somebody say volcanic soils, and then you'll see a wine often will taste have a smoky quality to it.

So that's one of the most easiest correlation, and we'll share more about that. So can you talk about Merlot and why it grows there? Why what are the aspects and where are the places that you're specifically seeing success with Merlot?

The valley is about 25 miles long, really at its widest point. It's maybe 5 miles wide and its narrowest point a little over a mile. So we have Merlot growing in all of those locations. We actually sustainably farm about 260 acres here in Napa valley. None of it adjacent to the winery here in St.

Helena. So I have parcel to the north of us in Calistoga, kind of in a canyon, very rocky. So I really have to work with the Merlot up there and protect it from the heat, and use a lot of shape, claw. And we've been doing a bunch of experiments with, how to best grow that out in the field there. But then we have a 100 acre parcel split kind of into 2 different ones, just south of the Oakville population in Yountville on the west side.

And that's all Bordeaux varietals there, all 5. And then we have another ranch in the Oak Knoll district as well. And so we have just Merlot planted there, but we also purchased Merlot from different ABAs. As, as we mentioned earlier. For me, Merlot is kind of a big, I call it the football player.

It's got a big primary cluster. And a lot of times it has 1 or 2 shoulders that sit above the primary cluster. And so you can imagine that the shading that happens kind of in what I call the armpits of the clusters. So I try when I'm out sampling the vineyards, to really taste the fruit from the areas that don't get any sunshine, because that's where you're going to taste that green characteristic, whether it be jalapeno, maybe a little bit, weedy or green. And so, you know, really trying to wait for those to dissipate because you want, you know, the clusters to have full sun exposure all around, but not so much that you're actually gonna get sunburn that will then, you know, really hurt the skin of the fruit, which is where all the color comes from.

Okay. So a lot to unpack there. The number one thing, the first thing you said was a buzzword sustainability. So just talk about that and what, what exactly that means.

Sustainability means a lot of things to me. We first certified our vineyards officially, almost 15 years ago. So our Yaw belt parcel was certified in, 2010 and, and the others then followed as well as the winery in 2013. So it's just really about making sure that we're using our resources in the right way and making the land better than we've left it out in the, in the vineyard. We spend a lot of time, especially in the last 5 years, like just looking at what our water usage is and how we could not, use as much.

We look at how much we can put back in the soil here in Napa Valley. We've been growing grapes for 150 years on some of the sites. Those soils are really depleted. So bringing in, tons and tons, and I'm talking like tens of tons, I'm talking like hundreds of tons of compost to really fertilize those soils, not tilling, using sustainable methods of farming, like just really mowing, bringing in cover crops that really encourage the beneficials of both birds and insects to really help you have a holistic view of how you farm. In the winery, it's, it's kind of the same way, like trying to do things as local as possible and not truck.

I mean, obviously I have to truck wine, but using I've never opted for, you know, for the wines that you're selling, today. But we've never opted for using a big heavyweight bottle. I'm looking for something that doesn't use as much gas to truck around the country. That's something that is not in fashion.

In order to be sustainable, sustainably certified, it sounds like the you have to manage your your water usage, your cover crops, which means if you have your cover crops, then you're not using pesticides and herbicides or as little as or any other sort of unnatural insecticides. Right?

That's correct. Yeah. Correct.

And then

And we, we joined the California Sustainable Wine Alliance, which really we have to go and make these improvements annually. It's not like a 3 year program where we're just, waiting until the last minute to do things. We're making these steps as a regular routine, as part of our practices, really looking like who we're partnering with, what they are using for production of what we need here at the library.

Yeah. And is there a movement that you want to go organic or is sustainable kind of the sweet spot for Markham?

We actually just certified our first, 15 acres. I know it's small, but we just certified that this year or maybe late 20 23. And so I made my first line this year from organic grapes grown on one of our estates. So

How'd it go?

It's delicious. I mean, it's 1st year crop because we replanted. So it's a little it's a little tight and edgy right now.

Okay. So I thought that's interesting that you say. And another great point. So vine age is a really important thing that people look and they might see on a bottle. You might see something that says old vines.

Why is that important? What does that mean? Well, as you were saying, it's a 1st year of a crop, so you can't grow. You can't really make wine from a vine until it's a minimum 3 years old. Do I have that right?

Correct.

Yeah. And then from 3 to 10, they're kind of rash and brazen. And here's what I I thought that they when you make wine from younger vines, they just give you all types of loaded with fruit, but they're not really interesting or complex. And they start to gain that from 10 to 20. But it sounds like from what you were saying is, like, maybe it wasn't so opulent with the fruit.

Yeah. I think it depends what you like. I mean, I like fruity wines and maybe that's part of being a Merlot winemaker that, A, dig that fruit characteristic that Merlot gives. And so looking at that, I think it'll be fun to watch, even if we do decide that we're going to make a bottling from that wine, you're going to have to be able to taste it from the 1st year that it produced a wine the next year. And you're going to watch this wine change as it ages.

I mean, there's something really, fascinating about that for me as well.

Absolutely. But would you agree with that or that as a vine ages, I always joke and tell people it's kinda like, if you have kids, it's like from 3 to 10, they're super brash and brazen and all over the place and a big personality, but they're not, like, wise or complex yet. You know? And then as they get into 10, 20, they start to have layers of complexity, and they start to learn more things and and wiser. And then 20 to 40, not only are they, like, getting wise, but they're really honing in on their personality types and all those things.

But, also, the other thing is they're still producing a lot. Right? Like, that's your 20 to 50 even. It's, like, your strongest work years. And after that with a vine, let you you produce less fruit, but it might be higher quality.

Sure. It's hard to find, a lot of people who are able to make that financial commitment to old vine. So I certainly applaud everyone who is able to do that. Sometimes there's just reasons why, why you can't, whether, you know, it's, it's what your, crop load can handle out in the field. Like we have a vineyard that up in Calistoga, our rocker box vineyard that is very Rocky soil.

And we struggle to get like this year, we struggled to get just a little over a ton to the acre.

Oh, wow.

And those, and those wines are kind of maybe in that 20 to 25 year range. It's, it's almost not financially farming than you're getting back in recovery. So I understand, you know, those small growers who aren't able to do that. So we do look at kind of a planting schedule, but, old vines, certainly, as you were saying, Matthew, they have that charm because they have kind of a reduced quantity that they're able to give you. And so it really intensifies the flavor with not the edginess of the young vines, but that maturity gives you, you know, really a true sense of what that terroir is in the area, the soil, the vintage itself.

Okay, Kimberly, I want to take a left turn for a second. You've been this

is right.

Oh, okay. We'll take a right turn. We'll take it. We're taking a turn nonetheless. You've been a head winemaker now for 23 vintages.

What's what's the best harvest party you've ever

had? Well, 24 vintages, if you count this one.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. Which we didn't even get into, but I'm more interested in the partying.

Harvest party.

Or what's the most fun or most or the, like the funniest thing that happened or the best story that came out of a harvest party?

Oh, come on, Matthew. You know, I can't talk about that.

But what can you tell us? I mean, was there was there There was tequila involved. Like people taking their clothes off?

Tequila involved. Say it again? I said there was tequila involved.

Tequila involved. Okay. Is that is that the drink of choice at the at the harvest party?

No, we drink, we drink wine. Our harvest parties are, you know, we'd like to have the whole team involved, but we do like to, on the last day of harvest, it's very the first day of harvest is about celebration and the anticipation of what is to come. Yeah. Well, I'm talking about the end

of it though. I'm talking about the end

of the harvest. Oh,

you're good. I'm okay. Sorry.

The last day of harvest is really very melancholic. It's very low key. There's, you know, there's not a group of people around to like celebrating that it's the last day, because we're all kind of sad that we, you know, have to wait another 10 months. I know that should be 12, but it's not. It's only 10 months until we get to do it all over again.

Right. It's just a fairly somber affair. So, you know, usually we're just there taking a shot of tequila on the crush pad. Whereas you, you start with champagne

and And with tequila.

And it just it ends with tequila and a family style lunch. This year, we, we ended, a week ago, and it was we actually celebrated and we had champagne on the last day. It was, it was very nice that we had a bigger crew and, were able to like really, be happy that it was a whole state of harvest. I don't know what that says.

Well, I mean, I, I have to imagine that there's a sense of accomplishment. Like you feel, k. We brought in the harvest. Here it is. Two questions about that.

By the way, what was the champagne at the harvest dinner?

We had, our sister winery Macrosti shared some wine because we did a little bit of work for them here at the winery. And so we celebrated with MacRostie Blanc de Blanc.

Represent MacRostie and I didn't even know that they make a Blanc de Blanc. I mean,

it makes sense because

What's that? It Oh, DTC only. Fair. Okay. Makes sense, though, as you guys are also in, like, sister was with, winery with Argyle.

So, the bubbles are flowing. Yeah. How was, how was the 2024 harvest and what can we expect?

It was, it was.

Yeah. I mean, you're done.

Yeah. We normally go like until Halloween sometime is usually the last day that we go. So we did harvest and I think just a little over 9 weeks, which is fast for us, because like I said, we've got vineyards to the north and to the south. The quality is, I, I really last year, the 2023, the vintage was just spectacular. And this year is right there.

It's real. It's really right there. I mean, the tannins I think are a little hoarser than last year's. But I'm thinking with, the barrel age and just blending and putting things together, it'll, it'll be really it's, it's pretty, pretty spectacular. I'm surprised.

Nice. I love to hear that. Especially after, like you said, the fires in 2020 and 21. It's been a been a bit of a slog.

It was a hot year too. Super hot.

Okay. But no major fires. Thank goodness. This year.

Thank goodness. Yeah.

Okay. And is that for the varietals you make across the board or was there like, are you speaking strictly Merlot?

A varietals across the board. Yeah.

Okay. I want to get back to the Merlot thing. But before we do that, obviously your experience, you have a wealth of experience specifically in Manapa Valley. And I hate to point this out because it seems inconsequential, but you are a female winemaker. Does that make a difference to you?

Does it make a difference that I'm a female winemaker?

I mean, does it make it like, how do you look at it? I know there's a whole, for lack of a better term, there is a a focus on it through Vine Vineyard and Wine Partners because your whole team is female. And I I can only imagine from a perspective of only knowing what it's like to be inside of a male's body that there's so many more male winemakers in the world. At some point, I think in the net value, it was like 8% were female winemakers. So I don't know.

That would seem difficult to me, but maybe for you, just like it is what it is.

Yeah. It's just a Tuesday. Yeah. When I first started in winemaking, it made me more it gave me more pause than it gives me now. I just, I just want to be known for making the best wines.

And then with things the way they are, I think that, you know, making sure that people know that women can do this job and we can succeed and we can do it well, that I've embraced really being a female winemaker and not just a winemaker, because I feel that that's important to the country to know. I have an amazing team and they all happen to be amazing at their jobs and they're all women. And that's, that's unusual, but I'm seeing more and more of it here in Napa valley. And I love that because, you know, I feel like I know more women winemakers than I know men, but I think that that's just, you know, who I choose to surround myself with. And, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily surprise me because, you know, I think that women historically have been the people who cook the meals, make the food.

And so, you know, it makes sense that we all have, you know, fine sense, in our palettes that we're able to do those things. But, I see more and more men who are taking that lead. We'll see, we'll see how it goes. But yes, I would like to see that percentage increase from where it's at now, which is maybe, I think we're probably at like 14 or 15%. Here in the Napa Valley.

Valley.

I think it's a scientific fact that women have better palates. Like, they can actually perceive more things on their tongue or in their flavor receptors than than males can. So that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Except a lot of times I think, you know, that also can be like, I'll, I'll just, this is gonna sound weird. I feel like I just close my nose because I don't want to smell things that offend me when I'm walking around and I call it, I have my nose flaps on because someone will go, oh, do you smell that? And I'm like, wait, let me open up.

And say, what's, what's the most egregious thing that you smell when you're tasting wine that you don't want in your wine that you'd like drives you crazy?

Well, I think cork taint obviously. But I mean, I think a wine for me, what, what throws me off a lot of times is if what I smell is not translated on the palate, then then that'll make me go, well, then, but I smell this, but I don't taste any of that in here. So it's, it's like one of those things that, you know, makes me, wonder what what's going on. And, you know, we had people over, a female winemaker, a friend of mine who I've known for a number of number of years. So we've been threatening to get together with her parents to do a pork centric dinner because her son had grown a hog that we had all shared.

And so we wanted to do that, and we did it last night. Of course, you know, the first bottle that we opened was corked, and we're like but neither of us made it. So, you know, we were fine. We just dumped it.

Alright. I'm sure you had better other backups there. Sure. Yeah. By the way, pork centric, wine centric.

I I sense a collaboration there. Okay. Why does that happen? Because I've definitely had wines that weren't flawed or, like, in a bad way. And for those of you wondering what Kimberly said, probably most of you know what court date means.

But when a bottle has, a specific thing that makes it smells kind of like a wet cardboard, you know that a wine is corked. You shouldn't drink it because that will reflect poorly on the wine and that doesn't necessarily represent the wine. So note to self, don't drink corked wine. But I've, you know, in blind tastings, definitely you'll go through wines, you'll swirl them and you'll be like, oh, my God, I'm getting flowers and cherries and blah, blah, blah. And then you taste the wine and it might be different.

You might get all the savory notes or, you know, or different fruits. Why does that happen in wines that are not fluff?

I think it can happen for a number of reasons. If, if you're, you know, are you using a cork? Like, even if it's not cork tape, sometimes cork is a natural product. And so you can get some, maybe too much air has gotten in or not enough air has gotten in. And that's why it's really fun to like taste wines over the course of, you know, an hour or 2, to be able to see how the lines open up and change.

It also.

Yeah. But come on. If you have a, have 2 couples over that wine, that wine bottle is not less than an hour.

Okay. That's true. Either. I try.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you get 2 bottles and open them and try the different bottles that could you could last. That's that's probably that's the way to do it is get 2 or 3 bottles of the same Okay.

You just you busted me there. Okay. You know, it's, it's different things. Like, did you put it in a barrel? Like, is the barrel I think, you know, for me, when a wine is young, that's, you know, why I try to not release wines until they have some bottle age.

Cause I can go through that bottle shock thing and people go, what does that mean? And for me, what it means is like the aroma, the palette, or just they're biting and then the acid sticks out. So you really have like, you know, you either have the aroma or you have the acid and then like the oak is here and they're all in different, they're all trying to go different ways. And you're like, okay, you need to come together. And until it comes together, I don't want to, you know, release it.

I don't want to send it out into the world because it's like an unruly adolescent. And so that's where I really, you know, kind of want to do that. So maybe the one you have is in one of those awkward stages and that can happen. Like even if you wait, what your appropriate amount of time is that you think that you need to wait as a wine ages, it is going to have those kind of those similar dips as you well know, in where it kind of goes through a dead zone phase. And especially I think in vintages or wines that have like super huge tannins, like you'll see that.

I remember like 2,007 vintage was a huge vintage, but also very huge tannins and our wines like at, at year 5, they just went through this dead phase and they came out of it. But it, it took like a good, like you opened a bottle of wine and you were like, where did it go? I got a couple, you know, calls, you know, from people of like, what is going on with the whole time? Like it just, and I'm like, I don't know what's going on. So wine is a living, breathing thing.

Yeah. Do you think

I'm still learning. It's

yeah. We're we all are. That's the fun journey about wine. Right? You guys do most of your bottlings under cork, especially your red wines.

Do you think that that will be something you'll change? And are you doing trials on that and doing it under either stealth enclosure, screwcap or other types of closures?

All of my whites are screw cap presently. And I use tin, a tin liner. So should be, and I love it. I've done some amount with red wines and screw cap, but not as much with the nationally available Napa Valley Merlot, the Napa Valley Altris red blend, and the Napa Valley cap. I use, technical closure.

So guaranteed to be like 99.9% TCA free. And then with our upper How

does that happen? Is

it,

is it a synthetic cork or partly?

It's not synthetic. It's little pieces of pork that have been put through like microwaves so that it kills any of that TCA, the, the trichloroanisole, which they then put back together with food grade, adhesive. And so it's safe. And so I use that. They're a little bit harder to extract.

So but they have the same sort of, oxygen transfer rate as a natural core. And then with our upper tier wines that we sell just here in the tasting room, we do a lot, my enologist, Patricia, she will soak everything in a, we use vodka that we dilute down to like a wine solution. So, you know, 10% alcohol. Yeah. And we soak to smell different lots that seem the cleanest.

And then we go to that cork supplier and with the lots that we like and do a further batch selection of the different batches. So that and then when it comes in, we test it again and do it. And then we have a guarantee on top of that. So, and we just started with that with the 21 vintages of our wines here at the tasting room, so that if we get a bad bottle, then we can just get our money back from the cork supplier because it is frustrating because people might not know what that smell is. Some people are just sensitive to it.

Some are not. And so, you know, if you're not, you're just going to think, well, I had marked them once and it wasn't very pleasant. You know, and I don't I thought about me.

You know, that reminds me, and I want to get back to talking about Merlot in the, like, the nineties to the 2000. It made me think of also when I came up in this business as a sommelier and working in fine restaurants, we tasted every wine before we brought it to the table. And there was a big controversy about that at the time. People were thinking, why are you tasting my wine like you're drinking? It was a little tiny, tiny little sip to make sure that the wine was showing as best as possible as representative of that wine.

And as a good sommelier, you shouldn't have a good idea or you should have either tasted that wine before or have a good idea what it should be like. And and so what also people didn't see is that if it didn't taste right, we would take it back before the guests even know knew it and bring them a sound bottle. So I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on that practice.

I think it's great. And I think, you know, you can use different methods for that extraction process to do. I think I, I mean, when I go out and I order a bottle of wine, I always offer my server a chance to taste that wine again in any case. But that's, you know, that's me because I'm in the industry and I know that, you know, they don't necessarily get a chance to taste, you know, every bottle that's on their list. So giving them that opportunity, I think is, is nice.

But I think, I think that's great because there's been plenty of times when I've had corked bottles served to me in a restaurant and I've rejected it. And I could see that they did not believe me because I am super sensitive. So I can taste way, way below the threshold of what is the testing for.

Okay. So having that, that was practice and the way of the sommelier

Nerd nerding out. Sorry.

No. Yeah. Nerding out. But I think most people who are thinking about Merlot, it's unfortunately not on top of the mind as a varietal. I also find it interesting because especially in this country and now all over the world, like you were saying in the eighties nineties, I mean, Merlot was arguably king, right?

I mean, it would, it was ordered in every major restaurant in a significant part of lists. And then, because of the movie and other things, maybe not for Markham, thankfully, but, it really fell by the wayside. And I find that interesting juxtaposed with the, what we call the Robert Parkerization of, of California. Because at that time or maybe, I guess it maybe it syncs up. And what I mean by the Parkerization is there was this time where when people reviewed wines for Robert Parker specifically, they were judged mostly upon the level of alcohol and bombastic fruit.

And not to say that that was always bad, but it was a style. And then winemakers, not you, Kimberly, tried to emulate that style. And thus, it just came, became so homogenous, the wines that you would taste. And it would all about how can I impress you with more alcohol and more, more fruit? And I'll let you take it from there and you tell me how that syncs up with Markham or is the, have you found that your style has changed over the years or is it always been similar?

Well, I would lie if I said it's exactly the same because I think that we all change and grow. I really, and I think again, this might be a female trait, but as a winemaker, I really value the input of my team. And I think that we make much stronger wines as a team together. So I actually taste and make most of my wine making decisions with my team. I'm not just gonna just be the martyr and say, cause I said so that's why.

I want, I want us all to be included in that decision so that we make the best wine. For me, Merlot is really about just being lush and, yeah, it's got a lot of that cherry pie sort of characteristic, but not in a sweet saccharin way. Do I think that the alcohol levels have changed over the course of the past of my past 24 years here? I do. I think some of that is the clonal selections of grapes in general.

So clones are like, if you look at apples and back, you know, depending on where you're at in the country, you have regional apples that don't go anywhere else, but they all taste different. But that's the same for grapes there. They might all be Merlot, but you have multiple different types. And so there are just little inherent labor differences. My favorite clone is 181.

And so that's mostly what I have planted, but the alcohol levels, certainly, you know, it's kind of related to, you know, the vintage and the weather conditions. So if, if you have a lot of high heat and you let things hang or you don't have access to water, cause maybe it's dry farm. Then if you have a heat spike, you know, you might have higher alcohols in your and you might use different yeast that also can do give you different characteristics. So I find that, you know, our MRF Lowe style has continued to remain fairly consistent. And I think that's why people respect and turn to the Markham brand.

Why they don't turn to Merlot? I don't understand because it is just a lovely wine. It is so food friendly in a wide range of characteristics that, you know, certainly can rival Pinot Noir for food pairings, you know, and have it with fish. You can have it with salmon. You can have it with a burger.

You can have it with pizza. You can have it with a very fine meal. For me, it's just a lovely wine. And with such depth, I mean, it has depth. And it's romance.

Merlot is romance. It really is.

I have to validate what you're saying because in preparation for us interviewing, I had, I made smash burgers the other night for my kids and, I popped a bottle of Merlot and it is the ultimate burger wine, especially because, like and I made, like, the Big Mac sauce with it, which has, like, all types of, like, vinegar and relish and onions and mustard and stuff like that, which is can be a hard pairing, especially when you have all those mustard and vinegar and onion flavors in one then mixed with the meat. But it was like perfect. And as you said, it was romance. It was love. It was that like that's the other thing that I wish people would understand more about Merlot.

Having worked also in a steakhouse for so many years, people, like, they get on their their bravado and they say, I wanna drink some big wine, some macho massive wine. And I would say I would argue that most of those folks, they yes. They want a big lush wine. But in comparison, they don't always want the tannin and austerity of Cabernet Sauvignon, which has that, like, b green bell pepper in the back and more of, like, the tartness in the in the back than Merlot, where Merlot is just like soft and voluptuous, stewed plum and blueberries and still has complexity and structure. But without all those like tartness,

for

lack of a better word. And yeah. So it just allows it to pair with so many different things.

And I think, you know, if you look at it in an even different way, Matthew, you might even find a great value that you didn't think that you could afford if you opt for a Merlot.

That's another thing is you were talking about these very beautiful, specific historic vineyard sites in the Napa Valley. And what would what you pay as a winery for buying the grapes of a Cabernet Sauvignon from that potentially same vineyard right next door? The Merlot is what half the price? A third of the price?

Yeah. And Merlot is unfortunately disappearing from Napa Valley fairly rapidly. So a large portion of our own estates are planted to Merlot equally as much as, Cabernet for sure. But, you know, it's, it's sad. I don't want to see Napa Valley become a monoculture.

I love that there are the different varietals here and they're grown throughout and it gives us, you know, that just, I mean, I love, I love wine. I love the variety of, you know, having the different areas to choose from, spice of life, so to speak.

All right. We're gonna end on what you're gonna tell me you're drinking for Thanksgiving in terms of, your choices, obviously outside of Markham. Before that, though, just tell me, you talked about you don't wanna see a monoculture. Obviously, Cabernet Sauvignon is king in Napa Valley right now. Sorry if you didn't know.

Or at least I think that's the perception. Maybe I could look at the statistics. But that's what fetches the highest bottles. That's what probably selling most in the market, and and it fetches the most dollars. With climate change going on, with changing harvest, like you said, this was a short harvest this year.

Do you see any other varietals that will be the future of Napa Valley or will be popular or are you're starting to see planted?

I certainly think that, you know, it would be, not advantageous for people to look at other varietals to plant.

So you've got it right then. You, you think you, you what's there is good.

Yeah. I think there's, I mean, again, we, we spoke a little bit earlier about how long you can leave your vines in the ground and grapevines are technically they're weeds. So they'll grow for a long period of time. But, you know, we learned, in the last century about phylloxera that took away the grapevines. And so I think for me, that's like, if you have only a single varietal, I want to make sure that this culture here thrives and looking at climate change and making sure that we are invested in the future, whether that be understanding how you're dry farming, understanding how you're using shade cloth or different techniques to protect your vines, or maybe it's permanent planting different varietals that are more heat resistant.

You know, I think that all of those things are things to look at whether or not you decide to change them. And you know, that's something that is a completely different question on a much larger, more difficult one. If that means that it changes the face of your brand, But I'm certainly willing to, you know, be that person who speaks up about with our, our vineyard to the north in Calistoga, looking at that and saying, it's, it's hard to grow Cabernet here. We should maybe put a little test site in of, of something that, you know, maybe it's not big, but let's, let's start now so we can see in the next 5, 10 years, what's going to happen if we put in, you know, a blender per se, like Morvedra. Still make Rose, but that likes heat.

That seems like something I would like to do, but I don't, I don't know if Markham and Morvedra, like, does that come together? I don't know.

I mean, I think stylistically, it definitely would. I love Morvedre. And similarly for me, by the way, for those of you who are like, what the heck is Morvedre? It's typically a blended grape that you'll see in the southern Rhone Valley and also in Provence, used in rose as as you were saying. And the, one of the top grapes of if you ever drank a bottle of Andal Rose, you'll see Morvedre in there.

But as far as we were talking about the lushness, the silky tannins, it definitely plays well with Merlot there. So

Yeah. I mean, I I think doing it in small amounts, I mean, I think any winemaker in any growing region around the world is, you know, concerned and, you know, trying to do their part to be sustainable. Like we all want to be sustainable. And part of that is understanding what that ground can support as we move forward.

Absolutely. Well said, Kimberly, I really appreciate your time. I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate your wines. And then if you tell me just what you're going to be drinking or what you've what maybe you even have it, haven't thought about.

So might be putting you on the spot, but you're thinking about drinking for Thanksgiving.

Well, I think first of all, people should come visit us here in Napa Valley. We just renovated our tasting room, and we have a new space for renting and throwing parties or lunches. So that's just, it's gorgeous. And our historic stone cellar that was built in 18/79. As for what I'm going to drink for Thanksgiving, I think I'm gonna go see my parents and I will probably start with some champagne.

And there will definitely be did you say I could not have my own wine?

Yeah. I mean, you can tell me what your of your own wine you're drinking, and then let me know if what else you would drink outside. I mean, you already said champagne. So that that pretty much catches me all.

Yeah. So I probably will you know, because I told you my mom loves Sauvignon Blanc, but we make a line here in our tasting room called the Frenchman's Blend that's concrete fermented, Sauvignon Blanc Chardonnay Blend. And it's a zippy little white. So I would say that's probably, you know, gonna be my mom's favorite. And then because we're going to drive up from California, we will probably stop at wineries along the way to bring some wine up as well.

Certainly there's going to be Merlot on the table because you gotta, you gotta have your.

You would be a fraud if you didn't. It would be like Exactly. You're not drinking Merlot at your table?

Yeah.

Alright. Well, Kimberly, thank you so much. And, I do hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, a safe drive up there. And, for all of you out there, get yourself some Markham Merlot, and you will drink deliciously. See you next time.

Thank you, Marie. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving.