2015 Long Shadows Pedestal Merlot

The 2015 Pedestal Vintage Select Reserve is a reserve wine that is rich and youthful. The nose has a dense, deep core with layers and complexity that you can smell. The palate is precise with a focus to detail noticeable in the texture and weight. While the fruit is still young and grippy, the wine still has another year or more until it will be released—only to wine club members—and will undoubtedly be the envy of any wine collector. Full-bodied on the palate, with impeccable balance and velvety power, this rich and robust wine ends with a long, drawn-out finish that has the longevity, finesse and structure to carry it for a couple of decades. Only 116 cases were produced, and they will be worth every penny.

Bright red-ruby. Deep Pomerol-like aromas of red berries, plum, toffee and meat; the least oaky Pedestal to date? Plump, savory, rich wine with a restrained sweetness and even a bit of medicinal reserve to its broad plum and berry flavors. This very fleshy wine is fatter and better balanced than the 2014 version, with a more subtle oak element. Finishes wonderfully horizontal and long, with sweet tannins coating the front teeth and incisors. (15.4% alcohol)

The 2015 Pedestal Merlot is a rich, dramatic wine that wafts from the glass with aromas of black cherries, crème de cassis, cigar tobacco and mocha. On the palate, it's broad, full-bodied and lavish, with ripe, generously oak-inflected flavors and an ample core of fruit, structured by fine-grained but youthfully chewy tannins, concluding with a sweet, spicy and somewhat heady finish. The most exotic and expressive wine in the Long Shadows range, it's crafted by Michel Rolland.