January 14, 2022

MARGERUM M5 2020

(Santa Barbara County, California) $21

Lots of plums and cherries come rocketing out of this juicy red made principally from Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre. Super easy to drink, M5 is a great wine for a cold January evening.

89 points KM

Available at Margerum Wine Company

The sweet Sherry, Pedro Ximénez, gets its sweetness from the botrytized grapes used in making the wine.

Answer: False.

The Pedro Ximénez grapes used to make the sweet, ebony-colored Sherry, also known as Pedro Ximénez, achieve their concentration by being dried on straw mats in the intense Spanish sun for about a week, not by the beneficial fungus, botrytis cinerea. The mats are covered at night, so the grapes are spared from the morning dew. Once made and aged in a solera, the wine will be 40 to 50 percent residual sugar—that’s more than three times the sweetness of Bordeaux’s Sauternes. The result is an elixir that is so mesmerizing you just have to try it.

MARGERUM M5 2020

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