The 2021 Scalon Barking Dog Vineyard Merlot is a wine of lush, generous character, single-vineyard Coombsville precision, and the kind of beautifully structured California Merlot that reclaims the variety's rightful place as one of Napa Valley's most compelling and genuinely pleasurable red wines. The Barking Dog Vineyard, with its name's playful warmth and its site's serious cool-climate Coombsville terroir credentials, produces a Merlot of a character entirely removed from the soft, overripe, or anonymous expressions that have sometimes given the variety an undeserved reputation in California: this is a Coombsville Merlot of natural freshness, vibrant fruit character, and the structural precision that comes from a longer, cooler growing season that allows tannins to ripen slowly and naturally acidity to be preserved with beautiful effect. The 2021 vintage, outstanding in Coombsville, gave the Barking Dog Merlot fruit of exceptional aromatic completeness: aromas of ripe plum, dark cherry, blueberry, mocha, cedar, and a distinctive earthy violet note lead to a full-bodied, velvety, and beautifully textured palate with excellent balance and a long, satisfying finish of genuine single-vineyard character.