Recently Merry Edwards posted pictures of her final day at the Merry Edwards Winery, which the legendary winemaker founded in Sebastopol, California, in 1997.
Merry, who started her career as a winemaker in 1974 at Mount Eden Vineyards in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, has retired after an illustrious 45-year career. In this column I frequently called her the Queen of Pinot Noir, although she was best known in the early years for stellar Cabernet Sauvignon while at Mount Eden and for breakthrough Merlot during a stint at Matanzas Creek.
Yet it was the more than two decades at her namesake winery that cemented her reputation as a genius with the difficult Pinot Noir grape. She was known to be meticulous and demanding of herself as well as her team, and that showed up in her wines. Her many single-vineyard Pinot Noirs ran the gamut from brilliant to extraordinary, a record of excellence unmatched in California over the past 20 years.
I also would argue her Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc have few equals domestically. Merry paved the way for retirement last February when she sold the winery to the French Champagne house Louis Roederer. That followed a decision in October to hand over the winemaking reins to associate winemaker Heidi von der Mehden.
When I first started writing this column some 29 years ago, Merry was already a star. That star only got brighter as the years rolled past. Merry will be remembered for putting California Pinot Noir, particularly Sonoma County Pinot Noir, on an equal footing with Oregon and Burgundy, encouraging others to take a shot at that noble but tricky grape.
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