Undiluted Perfection

By Jonathan Cristaldi · Photos by Alexander Rubin

Merus’ modern history began in a two-car garage in Napa, where Erika Gottl and winemaker Mark Herold produced their inaugural Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998. The tiny-production wine quickly earned cult status worthy of its name, Latin for “pure” or “undiluted.”

Acquired by Bill Foley in late 2007, Merus joined the growing portfolio of what is now Foley Family Wines & Spirits (FFWS), moving to a new physical home tucked into a canyon off Crystal Springs Road east of St. Helena that initially housed the Rossini winery in 1891. After Prohibition, it fell silent, joining Napa’s ranks of so-called ghost wineries. Previous owners Nils and Kirk Venge had restored the property’s stone buildings, added caves, and developed a custom-crush operation in the mid-1990s, but Foley further transformed the ranch while making it Merus’ permanent estate home, refurbishing 7,000 square feet of caves, installing new tanks and barrels, and polishing up two tasting salons.

Built on its Merus Cabernet Sauvignon ($225), Merus’ portfolio is now expanding to include another Cabernet-based expression, the small-production Precelis ($325), which will be available to wine club members as of October (as well as select accounts upon inquiry). Featuring world-class grapes culled from exceptional vineyards scattered across Napa Valley, both were crafted with a singular aim: to be bold, harmonious wines offering early drinking appeal backed by the structural bones to cellar beautifully.

“In a Good Spot”

The newly bottled Merus 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon delivers on that promise with uncommon force. It is the first vintage for which winemaker Michael Beaulac controlled the process from vineyard to bottling—choosing the sites, calling the picks, directing the fermentations, and assembling the blend. The result earned 100 points from SOMM Journal publisher/editor-in-chief Meridith May, a benchmark for a label now positioned as the flagship luxury wine in the FFWS portfolio. It has been quietly building toward this pinnacle after receiving 98 points from May for the 2021 (available in the market now) and 99 points for the 2022 (available online and at the winery).

“[Merus] has been a rotating door of people and philosophy,” Beaulac told me at a recent dinner at The Restaurant at Farmhouse Inn in Forestville in Sonoma County. “But we are in a good spot now, with a great winemaking team and fruit sources.”

That spot began to take shape late in 2022, when Foley called with a pointed request: “Michael, you’ve been in Napa for 30 years,” Beaulac recalled him saying. “You know the growers and the appellations, and you can buy what you want. I want you to buy the best fruit for our flagship wine.” It was a winemaker’s rare blank check. “Bill gave me the chance to make the kind of Napa Cabernet I wanted to make,” Beaulac said, “one that would do right by the Merus label and the Foley family.”

Merus 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley ($225) From its inky and majestic hue to its intense purity of black fruit, this remarkable red aged 31 months in 100% new French oak is pure energy, with tremendous ageability. Winemaker Michael Beaulac sourced fruit from Atlas Peak’s Stagecoach Vineyard as well as from sites in the Stags Leap District and Coombsville to find the right pieces of the puzzle. “This wine gets a lot of attention in the vineyards,” says Beaulac, who noted that this particular vintage, his first for the label, was about patience and precision. Like a hockey team gliding on the ice to victory, the liquid surges across the palate, bolstered by polished tannins and notes of black fruit, graphite, anise, and dark chocolate. 100 —Meridith May

He began recasting Merus as a highly curated, multi-appellation blend, picking from meticulously selected individual blocks—sometimes just a handful of rows—multiple times. He gravitates toward fruit east of the Napa River and in the Valley’s south, where cooler conditions yield grapes with hardy skins that contribute excellent color saturation but that must be tended to properly in the cellar so as not to extract excessive or harsh tannin. His Cabernet Sauvignon sources have included Shadybrook in Coombsville, Stagecoach on Atlas Peak, Ink Grade on Howell Mountain, Silverado Vineyard in the Stags Leap District, and Three Minutes by Tractor on Mount Veeder, with varieties such as Merlot and Malbec used as blending tools.

“For me, great Napa Cab is about richness and depth and texture,” said Beaulac. “Color and aromatics are critical, but tannin must remain proportional.” He wants bound anthocyanins, a low enough pH to support longevity, and, just as importantly, “an upfront deliciousness” along with the structure to benefit from long-term cellaring for those patient enough to wait.

Such patience isn’t required in the cellar, where Beaulac moves quickly. There are no extended cold soaks; fruit may move from vine through stainless-steel fermentation and toward barrel in about ten to 15 days. Ferments run relatively hot to build extraction, after which the wine is drained to another tank and held near 72 degrees Fahrenheit. “That’s when we’re getting the binding of anthocyanin to create mouthfeel,” he explained. “That creates richness.” Lots remain separate through élevage, and free-run and press fractions are evaluated independently to ensure only the strongest components make it into the final blend.

Beaulac makes the process sound simple, but when you taste the wines, they’re anything but—they’re complexly layered, aromatic, deeply flavorful, and full of soul. That “dialed-back” style of winemaking only comes after one has thrown a lot of things at the wall and waited, vintage after vintage, to see what stuck.

A 100-Point Winemaker Waiting in the Wings

Years before he joined Merus, Beaulac sold enough Murphy-Goode wine while running a jazz dinner club in Portland, Maine, to catch the attention of co-founder Tim Murphy, who told him that if he ever came west, there would be a job waiting.

Beaulac eventually took him up on it, and in 1989, despite having no winemaking experience, he crossed the country for harvest. His wife, Cathy, found work at the now-closed MIXX Restaurant & Bar in Santa Rosa, where she heard that a cellar position at Domaine Laurier had opened; Beaulac was hired to work there alongside winemaker Merry Edwards, and when Laurier folded, he returned to Murphy-Goode to help build its Pinot Noir and Zinfandel programs. Markham followed, as did a vice presidency of winemaking at St. Supéry and an 11-year stint as general manager and winemaker at Pine Ridge.

In 2011, Foley recruited him to oversee winemaking at his family’s crown jewel, Chalk Hill Estate Vineyards, and the neighboring Roth Estate. Then came the late-night call from Foley asking Beaulac whether he wanted to take charge of Napa winemaking for Merus as well as for Foley Johnson. Beaulac didn’t blink before accepting. While Foley Johnson is centered in and on Rutherford terroir, Merus gives him the entire Valley as a palette.

FFWS is now a top ten supplier of wines $15 and over as well as a top 25 revenue growth spirits supplier, according to Circana data for the 52-week period ending August 9, 2026. But that success starts with old-fashioned word of mouth: The company’s iconic estate wineries turn visitors into impromptu brand ambassadors who continuously seek out the wines at retail and in restaurants after their wine country experiences. Positioned for the on-premise alongside Foley Johnson and other labels such as Sonoma’s Lancaster Estate, New Zealand’s Vavasour, and Alsace’s Lucien Albrecht, Merus is FFWS’s luxury Napa brand—a cellar centerpiece that holds considerable weight at the table.

Beaulac summarized his move to Foley Johnson and Merus as “fortunate,” but that fortune is enhanced by a team to whom he gives all due credit. “Surround yourself with excellent people, listen when they have a better idea, and let successful experiments become new protocol,” he said, singling out Foley Family Farms director of winegrowing Will Thomas and associate winemaker Sierra Zeiter. “They’re smarter than I am—I trust them wholly.”

That humility may be the most revealing ingredient in the 2023 Merus. Beaulac still remembers the Beaulieu Vineyard 1978 Cabernet Sauvignon as a formative bottle for his own appreciation of wine; now he has made a wine likely to become one for somebody else. The score may be indisputably perfect, but the method, at least for this exacting winemaker, remains open-ended: Keep learning, keep questioning, and trust that the sum can surpass its formidable parts.

A Harmonious Table

At a recent dinner at The Restaurant at Farmhouse Inn in Forestville, I joined winemaker Michael Beaulac in tasting a vertical of Merus Cabernet Sauvignon that included the 100-point 2023 vintage.

Located on 6 wooded acres in the Russian River Valley, the 25-room Farmhouse brings a bit of posh hospitality to Sonoma County’s distinctly relaxed sensibility. Executive chef Juan Cabrera shapes menus around seasonal ingredients from local farms as well as produce from the culinary gardens at Chalk Hill Estate, another member of the Foley Family Wines & Spirits portfolio. The cooking is refined, with coastal influences and without excessive flair: Fresh seafood, humanely sourced meats, and vegetables from within a 100-mile radius come together harmoniously on the plate, creating a “natural dialogue between the food, the land, and the wines of the region,” says Dare Sturges, regional director of marketing for The Foley Collection.

The cocktail program follows the same garden-to-glass ethos, drawing on seasonal fruit, herbs, house-made infusions, and garnishes for drinks built for food pairing. The Merus Cabernets, with their ultra-fine tannins, deeply flavorful notes of ripe fruit and spices, and undercurrent of acid-driven freshness, likewise shined with all the dishes we tasted, from charred octopus in smoked prosciutto broth and Hokkaido scallops with hollandaise sauce to roasted chicken drizzled in jus and 28-day-dry-aged New York strip from Flannery Beef with red wine–summer truffle sauce.

This story first appeared in the Somm Journal October / November 2026 print edition (pages 70–73).