🏷️ Lot Overview
- Region: Napa Carneros (Hyde Vineyard)
- Vintage: 2023
- Blend: 100% Merlot
- ChatGPT Original Source Guess: Hyde de Villaine (HdV)
- Wine Berserkers Guess: Bouchaine Hyde
- Alcohol: 14.5%
- Oak Aging: ~60% new French oak
- Cam Price: $199/case ($16.50/bottle)
- Retail Estimate: $135+ (producer’s most expensive bottling)
- Drink Window: 2026–2040
🍷 Cameron’s Release Notes
Hand’s down the finest Merlot I have ever sourced, Lot 51 2023 Napa Carneros Merlot hails from the legendary Hyde Vineyard. The producer (not Hyde) sells this for well over $135/bottle and it’s their most expensive bottling across their entire lineup to boot!
If you have any affinity for Napa Valley Bordelaise varieties, this is a don’t miss – amazing Merlot from an amazing vintage!!!
My advice is to run, don’t walk, to the buy line…only 190 cases available!
Giddyup folks, this is an absolutely gorgeous bottle of wine at an incredible price, I promise! Lot 51
Website / Tasting Notes
Combine the legendary Hyde vineyard, no-expense-spared winemaking and the amazing 2023 vintage and you have the recipe for one of the greatest Merlot’s you will ever have the pleasure of tasting!
Sourced from one the most expensive Merlot bottlings in Napa Valley, you are getting the same wine for just $199/case, not too much over the cost of a single bottle!
Again, trust me on this one folks, the wine is spectacular and there’s not a lot to go around!
Exceptional, glass-staining color…deep garnet with an opaque core…looks more like a Cabernet than a Merlot. The bouquet is complex and lovely right out of the bottle with chocolate covered cherries jubilee and ripe raspberry/strawberry notes underpinned with fresh-turned black earth, toasted vanilla and coffee bean and gently haloed with the triumvirate of tobacco/leather/cedar notes of new French oak.
As the bouquet opens up, it’s complexed with notes of blueberry, blackberry pie and graham cracker, making for a spectacular aromatic experience.
Plush-yet-powerful on entry with supple blue and black fruits wrapped around a woolly ball of minerally tannins that unfurl the massive, palate-staining structure that typifies the 2023’s to reveal loads of mineral and racy red fruits that beautifully complex the darker fruit notes. Gobs of baby fat here but the finish has huge length and persistence finishing with ripe dark fruit and chocolate notes. WOW.
100% single-vineyard, Napa Carneros Merlot
~60% new French oak
14.5% alc.
~190 cases produced Lot 51
🧠ChatGPT says
🔍 Source Guess: Hyde de Villaine (HdV) — most likely
🧾 Rationale
- The vineyard is explicitly stated: Hyde Vineyard, one of the most iconic sites in Carneros.
- Very few producers bottle single-vineyard Hyde Merlot, and even fewer price it at $135+ as their most expensive SKU—HdV fits.
- HdV already markets itself around Hyde estate prestige with tiny allocations and French winemaking influence, matching the “no-expense-spared” language.
- The tasting descriptions—Cab-like extraction, tobacco/leather/cedar, big structure, mineral tannins—fit HdV’s polished profile rather than Duckhorn-style plushness.
Other outside shots (for fun only):
- Pahlmeyer has sourced Hyde fruit, but style and pricing don’t align perfectly.
- TOR works Hyde Cabernet—but Merlot is rare there.
⏳ Drink Window
Peak: 2027–2034
Open Anytime: 2026+ after early bottle shock resolves
Ceiling: Could easily ride past 2040 due to extraction + oak + tannin density