Merryvale winery
Merryvale Winery enjoys a highly visible location next to the train tracks and Highway 29 in the southern part of the St. Helena city limits. Merryvale produces several labels including the ones they are most known for, Merryvale and Starmont. The Starmont wines in part come from the historic Stanley Ranch in Napa s Carneros region; the focus of their production is both on well-distributed wines along with smaller lot wines. The Merryvale label includes a wide range of wines at various price points including premium Cabernet Sauvignon. And the Profile Collection, marketed as a separate brand, features two of their most premium wines, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend and a Chardonnay. Great care is taken in their winemaking, with the fruit separated into several small tanks. The reason they have several small tanks is that they often pick their vineyards numerous times during the harvest season fermenting each picked block separately, even down to separately fermenting specific rows from a vineyard block. Merryvale has long produced a Chardonnay from the Hyde Vineyard in Carneros (the first vintage we tried of this vineyard from Merryvale was 2005). Larry Hyde is one of the most well-respected growers in Carneros incidentally, Larry is a partner in Napa s HDV Vineyards with Aubert de Villaine, the co-owner of the storied Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in Burgundy. This Chardonnay is whole-cluster pressed (they often use triple sorting to ensure they are getting only the highest quality fruit).