WITHOUT RESERVATIONS

Merlot hounds

At a merlot lunch the other day, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be some dirty gray shag carpeting on the move behind the table.

"I thought it was a mop," the woman seated next to me said with a laugh after we had established that the object in question was neither mop nor carpet but a puli, the Hungarian sheepdog known for its corded fur. The puli in question turned out to be named Boulette, as in Boulette's Larder, the Ferry Plaza food emporium opened by Amaryll Schwertner and Lori Regis after their run at Stars ended in 2003. Boulette of course is their dog and mascot, and a gracious namesake and ambassador for the business she is. She even managed to put up with the lively attentions of a French bulldog puppy named Oliver with scarcely a snap while her keepers cooked a beautiful lunch and the other dozen or so humans sat chatteringly at a table at the Napa Valley Reserve, talking of merlot — in particular, of Blackbird Vineyards' merlots and whether they compare favorably with the merlot-based wines of Pomerol, in Bordeaux.

Merlot's rise to fashionability, or fad, was meteoric in this country, and, as with dog breeds that find abrupt popularity — the puli, by the way, has never been such a breed — production was heedlessly accelerated, and quality suffered. In this sense, Blackbird's references to Pomerol are not pretentious but reassuring, a set of signals that merlot-based wines need not be an embarrassment but can be respectable and even desirable — can even hold their own against the mighty and pricey kings of the Napa Valley, the cabernets sauvignons.

I liked the 2004 vintage (barrel-tasted, not yet bottled) slightly better than the 2003: The flavors were deeper and broader, and wine seemed to have its feet planted a bit more firmly on the ground without becoming a big, fruity bully. The better examples of pinot noir show, for me, the same sort of lean strength. The ground is of particular interest to the winemaker, Sarah Gott; the soil mix and the cooler weather at the southern end of the valley (where Blackbird grows most of its merlot grapes) are strikingly similar to those of the Pomerol district.

The ground was of interest to Boulette too. She sought a cool place to sprawl while avoiding Oliver, who eventually got the message and darted outside. End of discord.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com