This month, we will consider a much-reviled grape: merlot.

While some of the revulsion is merely a reflex response to powerful scenes in the 2004 movie “Sideways,” much of the criticism was indeed earned. Widely planted, often in the wrong places, cynically overcropped and overpriced, much merlot, particularly from California, was insipid at best.

We will not drink those wines. Instead, we will focus on the most exalted region for merlot in the world: Pomerol. These wines, I believe, will reveal that merlot was never the perpetrator but simply the abused victim of inappropriate farming and winemaking.

In Pomerol, where merlot is the primary grape, a very different picture will emerge. Pétrus, after all, one of the most prized, sublime and expensive wines in the world, is almost entirely merlot. Other Pomerol stalwarts, like Vieux Château Certan and Château Trotanoy, are likewise beloved if not nearly as expensive as Pétrus.

While Pomerol is part of Bordeaux, it differs in climate and geology from the Médoc, where cabernet sauvignon reigns, abetted by merlot. In Pomerol, cabernet franc plays the supporting role, with just a trickle of cabernet sauvignon. Unlike the Médoc, a region of imposing châteaux and numerous tycoons, Pomerol is plainer, a place where magnificence is rarely visible. Though the wineries may indeed have achieved wealth, many of their owners are still farmers at heart.