Amuse Bouche has spent more than two decades pursuing a distinctly Napa Valley interpretation of Pomerol, and the 2024 vintage returns to that original idea with a blend of 93% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc. The fruit comes from the estate vineyards in the eastern Rutherford Hills, where Heidi Barrett and John Schwartz have built the wine around Merlot since their first vintage in 2002. In a valley better known for Cabernet Sauvignon, Amuse Bouche has remained deliberately different, placing Merlot at center stage and treating it with the seriousness normally reserved for Napa’s most collectible Cabernet. The 2024 growing season gave the team the kind of conditions they had hoped for, closely mirroring the strong 2023 season. Rather than harvesting all at once, the vineyard was picked block by block from the final week of September through the first week of October, allowing each parcel to be brought in on its own schedule. That attention to timing is central to Heidi Barrett’s approach. Her stated philosophy is to emphasize the individual character of each vineyard and maximize the potential of the vintage while maintaining balance and elegance, an approach refined over a career that has included Dalla Valle, Screaming Eagle and some of Napa Valley’s most sought-after wines. Amuse Bouche has also made art part of its identity from the beginning, pairing each vintage with an original work commissioned specifically for the release. The 2024 label features “Gondolà a Napa” by French artist Bernard Louedin, continuing a series that has included artists such as Wayne Thiebaud, LeRoy Neiman, Jacques Pépin and Françoise Gilot. It gives the bottle an unmistakable visual identity, but the real draw remains inside: estate-grown Rutherford Hills fruit, a classic Merlot-Cabernet Franc composition, and Heidi Barrett’s interpretation of one of Bordeaux’s great Right Bank traditions through the lens of Napa Valley.