While at the local wine store I was looking for something that was medium bodied, and typically merlot from Washington fits that description for me. I literally chose this bottle based on the name and the AVA. The Columbia Valley usually produces a very good merlot, and while this one was not a single vineyard merlot I thought that generally it would be very good. Single vineyard wines are difficult to find in "big box" wine stores (like this one), and if they are in those stores then they can be quite expensive. I usually need to visit the winery to get a single vineyard bottle. Since this bottle is labeled with the AVA, I am assuming that the wine was either made from grapes harvested among a number of vineyards in the Columbia Valley or it is a blend of wines made from several different vineyards throughout the Columbia Valley.
The first thing that I noticed with the wine was the color. I was expecting a wine that was dark red to purple in color, clear but with an inky color. As I poured the wine into my glass I actually thought that it was mislabeled as merlot and was actually pinot noir. The color was brick red and light, leading to a glass that was red and transparent, fading a bit to orange along the edge. This is very unusual and led to the impression of a lighter wine. The nose gave me aromas of cherry along with a bit of spice. The tannins were supportive but not overly strong. the wine itself was clean with no apparent flaws. That is typical of a wine of this nature, where I suspect that the winemaker filtered the wine prior to bottling. Filtering is ok, as it can provide stability to the wine after bottling. The issue is that sometimes over-filtering a wine can lead to an uninteresting wine, one that seems to be targeted to the masses. This wine in particular was tight upon opening, but opened up a little bit after standing. I started to get notes of caramel and oak upon exposure to air, and that made the wine a little more interesting after standing for a day with a little bit of air in the headspace.
Overall, this wine was a solid merlot. At $11 per bottle it provided good quality-to-price, but I thought that it was a little bland.
I love grenache, which as everyone knows is called garnacha in Spain. Grenache is a tough grape to grow, as it requires hot temperatures to fully ripen and is susceptible to mildew. But when done correctly, it might just produce the best wine available. I found this particular bottle in my local Target, which is not a typical place to shop for wines but I am quickly finding that excellent wines can be found pretty much anywhere. Anyway, this bottle, in addition to being grenache, was on sale. That made it a double bonus! 
