Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Don Melchor is a bright ruby red. Expressive and complex chocolate, black cherry and ripe plum mingle with coffee and cassis aromas. Full bodied with red fruit flavors and ripe tannins that lead to a long and juicy finish.
Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon is appropriate with any hearty dish, especially lamb and steak.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wonderful aromas of black olives, meat and currants. Hints of fresh mint. Full to medium body, with sublime tannin texture that feels like the finest silk. A finish that lasts for minutes. Palate has amazing energy of richness and freshness. A great wine. So layered and balanced. 93% cabernet sauvignon and 7% cabernet franc. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Suave and refined, with rich, dense flavors of dried berry, dark plum, rose petal and bramble. Offers fine-grained tannins and accents of green olive. Finishes with hints of hot stone, dried beef and white pepper. Complex. Drink now through 2022.
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Wine & Spirits
This is the 25th vintage of Don Melchor, a wine selected from the Tocornal vineyard in the Alto Maipo, from vines planted in the mid-’70s in alluvial soils on the north bank of the Maipo River. In warm years like 2012, the fruit of this wine often becomes round and voluptuous, marked by sweet spice. In 2012, however, the wine held its freshness: The acidity feels firm amid generous waves of black fruit flavors. Cellar this for two or three years to serve with beef braised with cranberries and cinnamon.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a riper, heavier than usual Don Melchor, as evidenced by aromas of raisin along with black plum, coffee and creamy oak. A full, round, plush palate offers more than adequate depth, while black cherry, plum and vanilla flavors come with hints of licorice and chocolate. Hailing from a hot vintage, this avoids almost all herbal characteristics but feels a bit soft and simple. Drink through 2023.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Don Melchor, which in that ripe and warm vintage contained some 7% Cabernet Franc, has a showy nose with ripe blackberries that develop minty aromas with some time in the glass. The grapes are selected from their 127 hectares of vineyards in the zone, and fermented in small stainless steel vats to separate the different plots that are kept apart until after malolactic, when they are tasted and the blend is decided in July (the grapes are harvested between mid April and mid-May). The wine aged for 15 moths in French oak barrels, 70% of which were new. The palate is juicy with round tannins and good volume of fruit with the softness of a ripe vintage, showing the expressive aromas of the year. 91,200 bottles produced. This wine will be sold in March 2016.
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Wine
Don Melchor, named after Concha Y Toro’s founder, is among Chile’s most-acclaimed wines and a Cabernet that belongs in every conversation about world-class interpretations of this singular varietal. Winemaker Enrique Tirado says of his vision for the wine, “Don Melchor’s style, complexity, and elegance are the extension of the perfect balance between the rocky soils in Puente Alto, the cold winds that slide down from the Andes Mountains, the generous climate of the Maipo Valley, the number of years the vines have taken to yield their best grapes, and the meticulous and caring work of the human hand.”
The signature wine from the exquisitely tended Puente Alto vineyard, Don Melchor celebrates its 30th vintage with the 2016 release. Set at the foot of the Andes Mountains on the northern banks of the Maipo River in the Upper Maipo Valley, 650 meters above sea level, the vineyard dates back to the mid-19th century, when the first pre-phylloxera French varieties were brought to Chile. Today, the vineyard consists of 127 hectares, divided into seven parcels, 90% of which are Cabernet Sauvignon, 7.1% are Cabernet Franc, 1.9% are Merlot, and 1% are Petit Verdot. Each parcel has been subdivided in order for very specific, detailed work that responds to the particular needs of each plant, row by row, to achieve the perfect balance with the weather characteristics of each year. Average vine age is over 30 years.
Every year, Winemaker Enrique Tirado travels to the small town of Lamarque, Bordeaux, France, to meet with renowned Bordeaux consultant Eric Boissenot, to taste approximately 150 lots from the vineyard and determine which lots, and in which proportions, will go into the new vintage of Don Melchor. Once the final blend has been defined, the new vintage of Don Melchor is transferred to French oak barrels from the Allier, Tronçois, and Nevers forests. Nearly two-thirds of the barrels are new, and the remaining third have had one prior use. After 14–15 months, the wine is bottled and aged for another year to develop the complexity and elegance that Don Melchor is known for.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
The Maipo Valley is Chile’s most famous wine region. Set in the country’s Central Valley, it is warm and quite dry, often necessitating the use of irrigation. Alluvial soils predominate but are supplemented with loam and clay.
The climate in Maipo is best-suited for ripe, full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon (the region’s most widely planted grape), Merlot, Syrah and Carmenère, a Bordeaux variety that has found a successful home in Chile.
White wines are also produced with great prosperity, especially near the cooler coast, include Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.