Hester Creek Estate Winery Selected Barrels Merlot 2020

Deborah Podurgiel WSET IV Candidate rated this wine as 93/100 with the following review:

Another beautiful wine from Hester Creek Estate Winery Select Vineyards. This time it’s their Select Vineyards 2020 Merlot and fantastic value it is under $20. Deep ruby in the glass, fragrant and rich with ripe dark plums up front, cherry compote, dark berry, mint, clove, anise, vanilla and savoury wild herbs that are more of a caress on the palate with lingering, plushy finish. This dry, medium-plus-bodied Merlot is perfectly balanced with medium acidity and tannins are lush and ripe mid-palate. A beautiful easy-to-love B.C. Merlot from the Okanagan Valley and we poured it with slow-cooked pork side ribs. Tasted February 2022.

The Merlot grapes for this vintage were sourced entirely from the Oliver area with a large portion from Hester’s Golden Mile Bench estate, with the balance of grapes from three, select vineyards nearby. The wine was blended and aged for eight months on its fine lees and aged in 60% French oak barrels with the balance in American oak barrels.

2020 was an exceptional vintage for the South Okanagan. Summer came to the Okanagan Valley a little later than usual with June temperatures at or above average. September was very warm giving smaller grape bunches and a smaller crop, but with concentrated flavours and phenolic ripeness, and harvested just before that early snowfall on October 23 2020. The winery indicated that “the 2020 vintage was the 5th warmest in growing degree days in the last two decades. It is a year where the quality will be talked about for years to come, producing wines that are cellar worthy.”