• It’s no accident Stephen’s an all-time Naked legend. You'd struggle to find many winemakers making better kit at £7.99 a bottle, and this Merlot is no exception.
• For starters it has one of the most intense black cherry fruit flavours that taste as if they've been whisked up with a shot of espresso and liquid dark chocolate. Add a hint of spice to the finish and you've got one hell of a mouthful of red wine.
• What's more, because its backed by our Angels, it's not only a great glass, but a pretty good bargain to boot.

• Stephen’s Merlot is absolutely soaked in warm Californian sunshine, it tastes awesome and is great value to boot!

• Bursting with ripe and juicy blackberries, dark cherry and jammy plums followed by a dash of vanilla spice, it's the perfect tummy warmer.

• Don’t be afraid to crack this wine open on any occasion. With food or without, it's the ultimate everyday drinker. 

• Virgile Joly is a minor genius with the Merlot grape, and he's come up trumps with this little number...
• In the mouth it's a fruit bomb of juicy red cherries and berries and, once the initial explosion settles, you are left with just a touch of wood smoke. Bloomin' lovely!
• A hunk of red meat, lots of roast potatoes, a smidge of veg (to keep mum happy) and a case of this. That's Sunday sorted.

• Charles and Ruth love Merlot and they love a good Merlot even more. And this is just that. They took these hand selected top notch Merlot grapes from their sun drenched vineyards in Saint Rose and made another corking wine.

• All that Southern French sunshine is what Merlot needs to make this stunningly full bodied, velvety drop just bursting with plummy fruit with a touch of chocolate.

• This rich and fruity red is just right with any mediterranean-style food from antipasti to ratatouille with every shade of pasta in between.  

• There’s a reason why mouth-watering Chilean Merlot like this is among the UK’s most popular wines. With bags of lush fruity flavour, a touch of decadent spice and velvety-soft tannins - Natalia’s La Fortuna is the perfect crowd-pleasing, comfort blanket red to pull out on any occasion.

• On the nose it has aromas of delicious dark fruits - think lush black cherries and plums - with delicate spicy notes of black pepper, cocoa beans and vanilla. The palate follows through nicely with a smooth, velvety texture and all those lovely fruity, spicy flavours gently linger on your taste buds. It gave us butterflies the first time we tasted it.

• Most importantly it does all that without breaking the bank. At under a tenner, the quality level is quite simply astonishing. Making a wine this delicious at that price is arguably harder than making the posh stuff because there’s so much you need to get absolutely spot-on. And Natalia has nailed it.

• You'll find Edouard's vineyard in the small region of ‘Entre Deux Mers’ (between two seas), which as the name suggests, sits between the Garonne and the Dordogne river, just 20km from Bordeaux and 25km from St Emilion.
• In 2018, the region had almost no rain from mid-July to September but thanks to the firmly-rooted vines, the vineyard didn't suffer from the drought and produced incredibly juicy grapes. The old Merlot vines were particularly bountiful, and were prime for turning into a seriously special wine.
• It's very intense on the nose, with strawberries, and light coffee notes. Upon tasting, it starts fresh and then develops beautifully to reveal the true power of this wine. You'll find soft yet intense tannins which linger elegantly long after leaving the mouth.

• We’ve made $5 million available to help struggling wineries to survive and come out the other side of this Covid crisis. The closure of bars and restaurants across the globe has been a disaster for the independent winemakers who supply them. The little guys, without connections to the big supermarkets, are the ones who are suffering the most.
• When Covid hit, South Africa’s strict lockdown dealt a huge blow to his small family winery. They previously sold 90% of their wine to restaurants and bars around the world - so the sudden global closures hit them hard. Reenen turned to us, and in one single order we rescued half of his winery’s annual production. It's been a total game changer for Reenen’s small business.
• A complex, deep ruby red Merlot with gorgeous cherry and wild berry flavours and a long, velvety finish. Reenen likes to drink it with good friends over a roast chicken dinner. Simple, but delicious

• "Like our Sauvignon Blanc, Ben and I like to think our new Merlot rosé captures the best of Kiwi and French style equally! From Ben’s influence comes the colour and texture, but we've combined it with the Hawke’s Bay grapes to retain that classic NZ fruity character.
• It's from a single vineyard planted by one my early mentors – I remember the day he planted the vineyard, I was about 15 years old. It produces low yields of immaculate Merlot. Ben and I discussed the style extensively - achieving the desired colour, complexion and texture was very much led by Southern French style and Ben's years of experience. It's a real first for New Zealand rosé .
• It's a lovely salmon pink colour. Aromatically it has a little floral lift with rose petal notes to the fore, combined with some lime dust like mineral notes. It is dry but has that pronounced strawberry like fruit character. Very classy."

Rod Easthope, Winemaker

• Stellenbosch is the beating heart of the South African wine industry. It has the perfect soils and climate to make some of the best Merlot on the planet.

• Lucky for us, Johan’s connections there include some of South Africa’s winemaking top brass. So when a mate of his made a vintage of one of the country’s most sought after Merlots, Johan used all his charm (plus a dollop of Angel funding) to snaffle a parcel up for you.

• From the first sip it’s velvety soft and silky, like proper Merlot should be. With big warm hugs of red fruit, a lovely lifted flavour and a smooth, rich finish.

• I've used grapes from three different vineyards, including one elevated site in the Strathbogie Ranges, to make my Rebel Merlot. Each parcel was handled, fermented and matured in oak separately from the others, before finally blending and bottling.
• This is a special wine - I blended it with the Aussie Archangels! Along with the rest of my Rebel range this is a flavoursome wine with that typical Jen Pfeiffer "muscle" along with the softness and plushness that makes Merlot so appealing.
• My Rebel Merlot has a beautiful ruby red, purple colour, with ripe plum and cherry flavours with a touch of mint. It's rich, rounded and smooth with a finish that will keep you coming back for more!
  
  Jen Pfeiffer - Winemaker