The standard Kirkland Meritage from Napa Valley is the first of two private label Meritage wines we will see this year. In our opinion, while it is still a good buy for the $11 price tag, it is perhaps slightly the lesser of the two.
The second Meritage we will see is the Kirkland Rutherford Meritage, the last vintage of which was the 2015 we reviewed last August, and went a solid 88 points on. Since Rutherford is a highly regarded area of Napa, this bottle usually commands a slightly higher price tag, around $14.
Meritage means the wine is a blend of different varietals, and you will typically see the same grapes but in varying percentages year to year. The breakdown for this 2014 Napa Meritage is 47% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot and 4% Malbec. So it's representative of what you'd expect from a right bank Bordeaux, being a Merlot led wine.
My thoughts on this 2014 vintage are similar to my experiences in years past with this wine. It is a well priced Napa Valley red blend that is a perfect every day drinker, and a good one to throw on the table with about any meal you want.
It's easy to enjoy with decent dark fruit flavor, a fair amount of cedar mid palate and into the finish, and it wraps up fairly quickly: a little one dimensional and light, but sometimes there's a time and place for just having an easy wine to sip on with little thought required. This is that wine.
Of all the wines mentioned so far, I'd probably opt for the 2015 Kirkland Oakville Cabernet that we reviewed last week. Granted it's closer to $20 than it is to $10, but that bump up in price yields a much more complex wine that is worth considering.
Try them both and see what you prefer, but in the end I think we have a collection of Kirkland wines in stores now that are good representatives of the regions from which they come and are priced competitively compared to similar wines.
CostcoWineBlog.com Rating: 86 points
Costco item number: 333110
Purchased at Costco in: Atlanta, GA (Kennesaw)
Alc. 14.5%
