BBQ Beef Stew with Three Palms Merlot #winePW #MerlotMe

Our BBQ Beef Stew, served with a butternut purée, is delicious paired with the the Three Palms Merlot from Duckhorn Vineyards. This recipe doesn’t take a lot of hands on time, but you will want to start it in the morning when you want to enjoy it to allow for 6 hours of marinating and 3 hours of oven braising.

We share this pairing for today’s #MerlotMe month Wine Pairing Weekend event, along with a mention of some other great Merlot we’ve had lately. Disclosure: Wines mentioned here were provided as complimentary samples by the winery. The opinions are entirely my own.

We’ve had lot of good Merlot rolling in for #MerlotMe month, giving us a chance to try some new pairings.

Someone suggested barbecue flavors worked well with the Merlots that are a bit higher up on the alcohol scale, which led me to cook up this BBQ Beef Stew. What a delicious stew, so good served alongside a butternut purée for some great fall flavor! And of course, even better with a good Merlot; although “good” does not begin to describe the Merlot we paired with the stew.

Making BBQ Beef Stew

This BBQ Beef Stew turns out to be easier than my other beef stew recipes, such as my Beef Stew with Root Vegetables. Typically I am putting together a lot of herbs, spices and liquid ingredients for both the marinade and stew, making it a bit time consuming.

For our BBQ beef stew, we allow for a pre-made BBQ sauce to provide much of the flavor to the stew beef. I used a store bought sauce, Denny & Mike’s Sweet n’ Spicy BBQ Sauce I got at Whole Foods. If you are feeling more ambitious, you could make your own. Wendy, a fellow #winePW blogger, shares a simple recipe here.

I started making the BBQ beef stew relatively early on a Sunday morning. That allowed for 6 hours of marinating plus the 3 hours of cooking. You could start the marinating process the night prior to making the stew if you like.

Lately I’ve been using my oven proof Copper Chef Pan for preparations like this BBQ beef stew, rather than the Dutch oven as it cooks things very evenly and is easy to clean (Amazon affiliate link included there in case you are interested in one). Either the copper pan or Dutch oven will work here.

To make the BBQ Beef Stew really sing with fall flavor, I served the stew along side some butternut purée. Basically some butternut squash mashed along with 1 potato. Squash makes a pretty partner for Merlot, too, which was at the back of my mind here.

BBQ Beef Stew with Merlot from Duckhorn Vineyards

 

I knew the 2014 Duckhorn Three Palms Merlot was a special wine when I tasted it last October along with our Ribeye with Mushrooms.  Not long after that, this Duckhorn Merlot was named Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year!

Needless to say, I was eager to get cooking a good dish to go with the 2015 Three Palms Vineyard Napa Valley Merlot ($98, 14.7% ABV). I got big cedar notes on the nose, plum fruit and notes of licorice and menthol on the palate. An explosion of flavors!

This Merlot definitely evolved in the glass. The winery tasting sheet for the Three Palms Merlot notes the silky tannins that make for a great finish, with hints of “moist earth, cranberry, and chocolate.” Definitely jives with my recollection of this Merlot!

No surprise, the robust flavor profile of the Three Palms Merlot was a great match for our BBQ beef stew. The wine was certainly plenty big enough to stand up to the beef, and the complex flavors were a nice match for the BBQ flavors.

The Three Palms Merlot is comprised of 91% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1.5 % Petite Verdot, and .5 % Cab Franc. The wine spends 18 months in French oak, 75% new oak, 25% neutral.

Three Palms Vineyard is one of California’s first single-vineyard Merlots. Named for three iconic palm trees in the vineyard, the warm, up-valley vineyard has lean soils that cause the vine’s roots to go deep for nutrients.

For more on the winery visit the Duckhorn Vineyards website.

More Merlot ideas? Check out our Merlot Food Pairing Tips and Favorites article.

 

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#MerlotMe articles from Wine Pairing Weekend

• • Jill at l’Occasion shares “#MerlotMe In The Kitchen“
  • Cindy at Grape-Experiences writes “#MerlotMe with Family, Friends, and Food“
  • Lori at Dracaena shares “ #MerlotMe and the Little Chef “
  • Gwen at Wine Predator shares “Washington #MerlotMe Paired with Ahi Tuna and Salmon for #WinePW“
  • Rupal at Syrah Queen shares “Celebrating #Merlotme with Duckhorn & L’Ecole 41”
    
  • Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla shares “So Many Merlots, So Many Pairings for #WinePW“
  • Martin at Enofylz shares “Penne Boscaiola Paired with 2015 Duckhorn Napa Valley Merlot“
  • David at Cooking Chat shares “BBQ Beef Stew with Three Palms Merlot“
  • Michelle at Rockin Red Blog shares “Enough Already! Just Drink Merlot”
  • Sarah at Curious Cuisiniere shares “Peking Duck and a Merlot Wine Pairing“
  • Jane at Always Ravenous shares “Food Pairings for Merlot Lovers“
  • Julian at BC Wine Trends shares “BC Merlot with Ribs for Thanksgiving“
  • Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm shares “A month of #MerlotMe Wine and Food Pairings”
    
  • Nicole at Somms Table shares “2 oz Pour: #MerlotMe Moments“
  • Liz from What’s in that Bottle shares “I’ve Got #MerlotMe Mania”
  • Jennifer at Vino Travels Italy shares “You Had me at #MerlotMe“
  • Jeff at Food Wine Click! shares “Merlot for Every Day of the Week”

Be sure to check out all the great #MerlotMe Wine Pairing Weekend Articles! And join us for a live Twitter chat on the topic, using hashtag #winePW, at 11 a.m. ET and 8 am PT on Saturday, October 13, 2018. You can view past and upcoming Wine Pairing Weekend events here.