I like the chocolate and Oreo cookie aromas to the black plum fruit. Oranges and bay leaves, too. It’s full-bodied, full of character and expansive on the palate, with a toasty, firm tannin frame. Remains elegant. 100% merlot. Drink from 2025.

All Merlot aged in once-filled and neutral oak, the 2022 Merlot sports a vivid ruby/purple hue as well as solid aromatics of ripe black cherries, cedary herbs, dried flowers, and a kiss of background oak. It's medium to full-bodied, has a pure, elegant mouthfeel, polished tannins, and a great finish. It will keep from 10-12 years with ease.

(93+ points) Deeply colored and extracted for a Merlot, the 2022 Walla Walla Merlot displays mocha notes with plum and blackberry compote with soft notions of brown baking spices that sway from the glass with a firm, mineral essence. Full-bodied, the palate is still tight with firm,. gripping tannins that will release with additional years in the cellar yet will remain food-friendly for the next decade. The wine spent 15 months in a mix of new and used French oak and neutral botti. 23,448 bottles were made.

The 2022 Merlot is remarkably pretty, as a bouquet of violet flowers, lavender, hints of sweet spice and sugar-dusted blackberries wafts up for the glass. This is soothingly round and pure in style, with a perfumed mix of blueberries and sensations of liquid stone. It tapers off long and floral with a pleasantly tart blackberry tinge that lingers on and on. This is a more accessible interpretation of Leonetti's Merlot. -- Eric Guido