Wine · Terminology

Meritage

A trademarked American name for a Bordeaux-style blend that can't legally be called Bordeaux.

Meritage is a trademarked term — coined in 1988 from merit and heritage, and pronounced to rhyme with heritage, not with garage — for a New World wine made from the traditional Bordeaux grape varieties.

It solved an American labelling problem. US law requires 75% of a named variety for a varietal label, but a proper Bordeaux blend is deliberately under that threshold. Such wines had to be sold as generic "red table wine", which said nothing. Meritage gave them a name.

In practice

  • Licensed by the Meritage Alliance; producers pay a fee to use the term.
  • The wine must be a blend of two or more approved Bordeaux varieties, with no single variety exceeding 90%.
  • Red: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Carmenère, Gros Verdot, St. Macaire.
  • White: Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Muscadelle.

Where you'll meet it

  • California and Washington above all.
  • Canada, Israel, Argentina and elsewhere — the Alliance licenses internationally.
  • Alongside producers' own proprietary names — Opus One, Insignia, Trilogy — which do the same job without the licence fee.

Why the varietal minimum forces the issue

Market Minimum for a varietal label
USA 75% (some states/AVAs stricter)
EU 85%
Australia, New Zealand 85%
Chile, Argentina 85% (for export markets)

A classic Left Bank blend might be 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc. No single grape clears the bar, and the place name belongs to France. Hence the invented category.

Does anyone use it?

Less than the Alliance hoped. Many of the best American Bordeaux blends carry proprietary names instead — a name you own outright is worth more than a shared category, and there is no licence fee. Meritage is more common in the mid-market, where the term does useful explanatory work on a shelf.

The underlying point survives regardless: on a New World label, a blend without a variety named is often the producer's most serious wine, not their least.

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