Someone in St. Helena looked at their Merlot and decided to make Beaujolais with it. Young Inglewood’s VENN label fermented this whole-cluster and carbonic sealed away from oxygen in stainless steel for fifteen days, then foot-trodden before nine months in neutral French oak. Fruit comes from their practicing-organic, low-input estate on gravelly loam. At 12.6% alcohol, pale ruby, and just 55 cases made, it’s about as far from the Napa Merlot stereotype as you can get: raspberry, wild strawberry, rose stems, a savory herbal snap, and a light dusting of tannin. Give it a chill. Then reconsider everything you assumed Merlot had to be.