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Merlin Holland Homemade Spanish Wine |
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One unique wine tasted at the BYO Spanish wine tasting was a homemade Spanish wine made by the grandson of Oscar Wilde. The wine brought by Dean and Debby Mitchell was given to them on a visit to London in 2001. The following is Dean’s account of how he came about the wine. I was fortunate enough to meet Merlin Holland (grandson of Oscar Wilde) at a party in Cincinnati when he was here at the Mercantile to discuss a biography on his Grandfather. I had happened to bring a couple bottles of Burnet Ridge wine (Purple Trillium and a Zinfandel). He really enjoyed the wine and he mentioned that he also made is own wine but was really intrigued by the method Chip Emmerich was using to make his Burnet Ridge wines. We ended up talking about wine for over an hour. I really think he was just tired of discussing his book and Oscar Wilde and relished the opportunity to discuss another topic. It didn’t take me long to realize that wine was more than a casual interest to Merlin. His passion for winemaking was very obvious.  Merlin with girlfriend at his London Home in 2001
In November of 2001 we scheduled a week vacation in London. This was probably a year after the conversation I had with Merlin. It was also only a month after 911 so we were a bit leery of traveling but decided to make the trip anyway. One night after enjoying a few of London’s finest pints we decided to see if there was anyway Merlin would actually remember us. We called his number and he was actually in the United States but was to return the next day. We left the number of the flat we had rented and didn’t really expect it to go any further. But to our surprise we got a call the next night and were invited to visit him at his home.
We had a wonderful visit and discussed the events of 911 over a couple glasses of wine. It seems he was in route to the US when the attacks occurred and was rerouted to Canada where he had to stay for multiple days in a town gymnasium.
Upon leaving that night he went to his cellar and pulled two bottles of his homemade wine. One burgundy (which I drunk a few years ago and was excellent) and one he had made from grapes grown in Spain. The Spanish wine was a 1992 that he did not really even know the exact make-up of grapes.
On the bottle he had “? Grapes” followed by the word Alicante. I am not sure if this was an indication that part of the grapes had Alicante (in Spain is known as Garnacha Tintorera). But it could have also meant the town of Alicante. After decanting the bottle my guess is that part of the grape composition was Alicante Bouschet. The green glass bottle lost none of the red color it showed when full of wine. The unfiltered wine had etched the glass a deep purple making it look like it remained a full bottle.
Upon first smell of the wine it had a hint of Brett. This quickly blew off leaving a dusty fruit nose. Upon tasting the deep dark purple wine you could taste dark stone fruit flavors but the overall feeling was the wine was a bit tired. Overall for a homemade wine that was 14 years old it was a very impressive for it’s structure and balance. It would have been nice to taste this same wine 10 years ago when I am sure the fruit was much more pleasant. It was very nice of Merlin to share the bottle of wine with me. It was also a real pleasure for me to share it with fellow members of AWS. Like music, wine can often be a universal language and is much better to drink. Cheers to all those who take the time to share wine with friends and those who will be friends.
Additional Information about Merlin: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/tuholland.html Short biography of Oscar Wilde by Merlin: http://home.arcor.de/oscar.wilde/biography/biography2.htm
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