Merlot

A variety of Wine grape that is used to create Merlot wine. Merlot is a popular variety of red wine. Merlot-based wines are usually have medium body with hints of berry and currant. Most consider it "easy to drink" when compared to other red wines, particularly its traditional blending partner Cabernet Sauvignon. Its softness and "fleshiness", combined with its earlier ripening, makes Merlot an ideal grape to blend with the sterner, later-ripening Cabernet. Many Merlots are made a style popular with newer red wine drinkers (though to be clear, good merlots accompanying appropriate food are popular with many regular wine drinkers as well).

It is produced primarily in France and California, and on a lesser scale in Australia, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland, and Slovenia. Most wines from Bordeaux contain at least some Merlot, and in the regions of Pomerol[?] and Saint-Emilion[?] it is not unusual for Merlot to comprise the majority of the blend. One of the most famous and rare wines in the world, Château Pétrus[?] is almost all Merlot.

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Merlot is also the name of an XML Editor.

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Merlot is an online education technology[?] project sponsored by the Califoria State University[?] System.