Before actor Paul Giamatti impressed television viewers and gained critical success with his dogged portrayal of a US attorney in the series Billions, he’d had a breakout role in Sideways, a small indie movie, as a depressed and bitter character touring Santa Barbara wine country, vowing never to drink another glass of merlot in his life. He was a pinot noir disciple.
That little niche film caught everyone by surprise, becoming a smash hit globally — and merlot sales tanked. Industry experts said that single scene was responsible for turning wine consumers off merlot. Sales have recovered in the past 21 years, but it’s still mystifying that merlot doesn’t get as much love as it deserves.
Merlot is a big part of the local wine industry. It’s the fourth most planted red grape in South Africa, behind cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and pinotage, and accounts for 6% of the total vineyard. Locally, 6.5-million litres are sold every year, while cabernet accounts for 5.7-million litres. However, red blends dwarf both, selling 12.6-million litres. Therein lies part of the problem: merlot is seen more as a blending partner than a star in its own right.
If you were to ask local commentators for top examples of merlot, they’d be hard-pressed to name more than a few. Analyse the annual five-star roll of honour in the Platter Guide, and it’s plain to see that with just three examples merlot isn’t in the same league as cabernet sauvignon (21), shiraz (21) and pinotage (12). Cinsaut (four) had more five-star ratings than merlot. Yet Platter 2025 also shows there were 337 individual merlots tasted for the 2025 guide vs 90 for cinsaut.
One reason given is that merlot is a grape that requires more hands-on treatment than most viticulturists are prepared to give. Water is important, but, like Goldilocks, it has to be just right — neither too much nor too little. That’s why soils with a water-retaining clay fraction are more suitable for plantings. It’s also known for being particularly leafy, growing large canopies which shade the fruit and inhibit ripeness.
Durbanville producer De Grendel is championing the grape, keen to show that merlot can be better than “average” or nice and easy drinking, the faint praise with which it is usually damned. Winemaker Morgan Steyn says the maiden release of De Tijger 2022 is the result of years of experimentation with viticulture and winemaking on a special vineyard next to the winery. “The vines were planted in 2001 and over the years the team realised that this one vineyard always performed best — but also needed time in bottle to show how good it is.”
Water is important, but, like Goldilocks, it has to be just right — neither too much nor too little
Cellar chief Charles Hopkins is renowned for researching the “green” character in cabernet franc wines attributable to methoxypyrazine levels. The lessons learnt in that experiment have translated to this merlot patch.
“It’s on the western slopes of the Tygerberg and it feels the effect of the cool winds that blow across Table Bay,” Steyn says. “The one important thing we did was to remove leaves around the grape bunches, getting more sunlight into the canopy and allowing better ripeness. More sunlight also breaks down pyrazine levels.”
They also systematically trawl through the vineyard and cut off superfluous bunches at veraison, the period when the grape bunches change colour from green to red. This reduces the overall yield but concentrates ripening. So where a vineyard would normally produce 9t-10t of grapes, this one produces just 6t.
They also amended their methodology in the winery, having worked out that during fermentation in standard upright cylindrical tanks only 30% of the cap of skins is exposed to the juice while floating on top of it.
Using conical tanks hiked this ratio of skin and juice contact to 55%. Pump-overs were preferred over punch-downs, with the former draining fermenting juice from the bottom of the tank before pumping it over the skin cap, allowing the juice to gently trickle through the skins to extract colour and flavour.
Punch-down, in which the cap is manually pushed and submerged into the juice, is a harsher, more mechanical process. And when it came to oak exposure, the standard merlot was given one year in French barrels, of which just 10% were new, whereas the De Tijger, or reserve sample, matured for 18 months in oak, half of which were new.
It remains to be seen whether De Grendel De Tijger 2022 gets to rub shoulders with Thelema’s reserve merlot, Meerlust, Hartenberg, Shannon’s Mount Bullet or Shannon Black, Holden Manz reserve, Vondeling, Villiera, Bein Wines or Anthonij Rupert, all industry-leading examples, but proving it by tasting is sure to be delicious.
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