Merlot

Wine Style:
A light to medium bodied wine with fewer types of tannin and takes well to oak and bottle aging. It’s used frequently as a blending wine with Cabernet Sauvignon.

Flavors:

Origin:
Bordeaux in France

Found:
Most if not all of the wine-growing regions

Merlot is very productive, ripens early, thin skin dark blue grape variety and is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietals characteristics if harvested overripe.

In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s Masseto, Le Macchiole’s Messorio , Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.

Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.

Further Reading:
Cellar Notes
Epicurious
Terroir France
Vinodiversity
Wine Pros
Wikipedia
Wine Web Central