The origins of this important Bordeaux grape variety are unknown, regarded as a secondary cultivar until the 19th century and bearing a very different name to today, Crabutet or Vitraille.
Its present-day name refers to the “merlo”, the blackbird.
Merlot became fashionable in the Nineties, no longer as the variety used to make popular food-flexible wines but in the production of high-quality wines.