For several years, there was a bizarre role reversal among wine consumers when it came to merlot.
Cork dorks still savored this (literally) noble grape, but casual consumers turned up their collective noses at their once-favored wine.
The trend commonly was attributed to the merlot-bashing in the movie "Sideways," which is odd because: (a) who would follow the lead of a character as schlubby and annoying as Paul Giamatti's Miles? and (b) the "I'm not drinking any [expletive] merlot" line was laced with irony because Miles' dream wine, Cheval Blanc, is a merlot-cab franc blend.
In another bizarre twist, the Twin Cities actually was at the forefront of a subsequent wine trend, arguably ahead of the coasts, in embracing malbec early and often as an easy-drinking-red alternative to merlot.
And truth be known, there was a lot of mediocre (or worse) merlot out there, as the variety often was transformed from a wine to a commodity, especially by large commercial operations in California concocting overly jammy, flabby versions.
The problem was that as merlot's popularity skyrocketed, it became over-planted — from eight acres in all of California (!) in 1960 to 2,000 in 1985 and 50,000 in 2003 — and wrongly planted, in unfriendly low places. The grape grows best in arid, rocky soil but also handles clay better than most grapes.
Still, as many of the plonk producers fell by the wayside, dandy renditions were emanating from Washington, Chile and, of course, Bordeaux, where it actually is the most widely planted variety. (Not that this helps consumers, since the grape name is not on the label, although wines from Saint-Emilion and Pomerol tend to be all or mostly merlot). California also continued to provide solid-to-spectacular merlots, from inexpensive Bogle to deservedly iconic Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard.
In short, wine enthusiasts had no reason to move away from merlot, just from certain icky iterations.
