Aromas of pear, acacia, pink grapefruit, and caramel, with flavours of pear, grapefruit, and lemon on the palate with bright acidity from the first sip. The mid-palate is soft and balanced, bursting with flavours of cardamom and apricot leading into a finish of lemon, lime, and pear that lingers on the tongue. An aromatic style fusing Napa richness and ripeness with elegance and textural complexity.

Blackbird Vineyards is unusual in Napa Valley, being dedicated to Merlot and Cabernet Franc (“merle” being French for “blackbird”) rather than the ubiquitous Cabernet Sauvignon. Aaron Pott has been winemaker at Black- bird since the beginning, where the Right Bank Bordeaux inspiration res- onates with years making wines at Troplong Mondot and LaTour Figeac in Saint-Emilion. The ten acre Blackbird Vineyard in Oak Knoll is at the heart of production, a unique vineyard in the area where the clay soil in which Merlot thrives is well drained by several metres of underlying gravel. The other vineyards from which fruit is sourced are Ballard Vineyard on Spring Mountain, Crocker & Starr in St. Helena, Star Vineyard in Rutherford, Stagecoach Vineyard 1200 ft up on the volcanic, basalt-rich, orange soils of Pritchard Hill, and Hudson Vineyard in Carneros. Blackbird’s winery is a utilitarian warehouse in central Napa town which makes up for the unprepossessing nature of its appearance with the state-of- the-art level of its equipment. Tanks are all from Lejeune in France, each with their own pump-over devices. All grapes are triple-sorted (by bunch, then by grape, and finally with an optical sorter). Gravity is used for moving juice between vessels, and a variety of fermentation and maturation vessels are used, from clay amphorae, which Aaron is a particular fan of, to a selection of oak barrels from different cooperages, particularly Bossuet, Taransaud, and Sylvain.