Panagiotopoulos Wines — Tomos II Merlot 2014

The Tomos range is the organic reserve line of the Panagiotopoulos estate: three single-varietal reds made from Cabernet Sauvignon (Tomos I), Merlot (Tomos II) and Syrah (Tomos III), each from certified organic sites within the PGI Trifilia and aged for 24 months in barrel. The Tomos II is the limited, oak-driven Merlot version, considerably more ambitious than the estate's simple, shorter-aged Merlot. The first vintage of this organic Merlot line dates from 2003. Exactly how the winery ranks its reds internally remains hard to follow. It lists the Tomos II Merlot and the Tomos I Cabernet as "Super Premium," yet the Tomos III Syrah only as "Premium," while the highest tier, "Ultra Premium," is reserved for the separate Cabernet cuvée "36."

This is a single-varietal Merlot from a certified organic site at 500 m altitude, hand-harvested on 10 September 2014, aged for 24 months in 225-liter French oak barrels, 14.5% vol., a good 8,200 bottles. At retail it sits around €20 to €30.

2014 was no easy vintage in the Peloponnese, rather cool and damp, with rain, disease pressure and the need for rigorous selection. The early harvest on 10 September likely helped the Merlot avoid the later autumn rains. As the third of the three Tomos wines, after the Cabernet 2013 and the Syrah 2013, I now had this Merlot 2014 in the glass.

A wine that is still very, very fresh, no question. After a still quite fruit-forward nose, however, it is simply too soft on the palate. There is little tension, little variation, that would make it exciting. Just how much it lacks this tension was shown by an Anny's Animus 2014 of the same age, which I had in the glass alongside it. That one did not seem quite as fresh, but it had the more intense, plummy nose and an acidity on the palate that kept lifting it again and again.

For me these are 89 points. It should hold them for a long time yet, and in a few years it will thereby stand ahead of a great many other Greek 2014 Merlots, hardly any of which come through time so freshly. It remains telling, though, that of all wines it was the Syrah, officially the lowest of the three, that was my favorite in the glass — and this Super Premium Merlot the least exciting.