Clos Apalta 2012
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Wong
Wilfred -
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Suckling
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Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Dark and deep inky purple red color. Complex nose opening towards ripe and expressive red and black fruit, such as plums, red cherries, dry figs and blueberries. Spices such as clover and black pepper. With a concentrated structure, this wine has a round attack followed by velvety and polished tannins filling the mid palate and a ripe and rich long lasting finish.
Open and leave to breathe for a couple of hours or carefully decant for minimum 1 hour and enjoy at 17ºC (64°F).
Pair with: game, lamb, and entrecote fillet. Also good with rich bitter cocoa chocolate desserts.
Blend: 66% Carmenère, 19% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
One of my top red wine experiences of 2016, the 2012 Clos Apalta just sails onto the palate with seamless energy. Intense, yet stylish, this wine's tremendous persistence of red fruit and sweet oak starts out strong and continues through its long and smooth finish. Just starting to drink well. (Tasted: August 18, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Lusty notes of coconut, charcoal, vanilla and herbs grace core blackberry and cassis aromas. This is massive and widespread on the palate, but the key to its success is impeccable balance. Toasty, minty flavors of blackberry and cassis are chocolaty and lightly herbal, while the finish blends lushness, power, heft and smoky, herbal flavors that go on and on. Drink this Carmenère-led blend through 2024.
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James Suckling
Plenty of spice and blackberry with some dried potpourri. Underlying cedar character as well. Medium-bodied with chewy tannins and a fresh finish. Slightly dry tannins at the end.
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Wine Spectator
A dense, ripe and powerful style, with concentrated flavors of dark plum, blackberry and chocolate. Very plush and creamy midpalate, with a rich finish loaded with espresso notes, along with medium-grained tannins. Carmenère, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Clos Apalta started off a little closed, but with air, the spicy aromas seemed to dominate (cloves, black pepper); there are also lots of smoky notes over a core of ripe black fruit with a volatile hint. It feels young and greatly marked by its two years in new French oak barrels. The palate is still young and tannic, and the finish is a little dry. There's not a lot of fruit in there and it somehow feels like it lacks a bit in the mid palate. For fans of the style, but even though, you should wait to pull the cork.
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Wine
Everything starts in 1994 when Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband Cyril de Bournet first arrived in Chile’s Colchagua Valley. They quickly realized its potential for producing world-class wines. This ideal setting, which was revitalized in 1995, was home to vines originating from pre-phylloxera rootstock brought from Bordeaux in the middle of XIX century. Member of a renowned family that has been dedicated for several generations to the production of high-quality spirits and wines, Alexandra with legendary wine expertise, brought exceptional French winemaking practices to Chile and pioneered the development of fine quality wines from the region. Today it is Charles de Bournet Marnier Lapostolle, seventh generation of the family, who holds the reins of the Winery. Together with him is Jacques Begarie, Technical Director & Winemaker, under the advice of the famous winemaker Michel Rolland, who is personally involved in the whole production of Clos Apalta. In its short history, Clos Apalta wines have consistently ranked highly (90+ points) among reputable wine trade publications, a testament of the rigorous standards implemented at the winery to produce outstanding wines. Clos Apalta's philosophy is as simple as it is ambitious: to express terroir in the wines, looking for excellence, elegance and character in a handcrafted wine that can talk about the amazing place that is the Apalta Valley.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Well-regarded for intense and exceptionally high quality red wines, the Colchagua Valley is situated in the southern part of Chile’s Rapel Valley, with many of the best vineyards lying in the foothills of the Coastal Range.
Heavy French investment and cutting-edge technology in both the vineyard and the winery has been a boon to the local viticultural industry, which already laid claim to ancient vines and a textbook Mediterranean climate.
The warm, dry growing season in the Colchagua Valley favors robust reds made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Malbec and Syrah—in fact, some of Chile’s very best are made here. A small amount of good white wine is produced from Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.