Winemaker Notes
Don Melchor 2018 is a wine that highlights the expression of the fruit and the quality of textures achieved by the Don Melchor vineyard. This vintage displays a remarkable presence of red fruits and a clear expression of the Puente Alto Cabernet Sauvignon, with fine, delicate tannins that give the wine great elegance and density, different layers of aromas and flavors, very smooth, elegant tannins, and a long, persistent finish. The wine manages to produce that unique sensation you only get from great wines and great harvests.
Blend: 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Merlot, and 1% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is amazing. The vibrancy and energy in this wine is stunning. The complexity of aromas are breathtaking with flowers, blackcurrants, raspberries and peaches. Full-bodied, yet ever so refined and polished with impeccable texture and beauty. The length is marvelous. This is a testimony to balance, harmony and transparency in a great red. Drink after 2023.
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Wine & Spirits
Long produced from its own 314-acre vineyard, a prime site on the third alluvial terrace above the north bank of the Maipo River, Don Melchor is now established in its own estate winery. Enrique Tirado, who started making Don Melchor in 1997, considers the 2018 season one of the most vine-friendly he has worked, with plenty of rain in winter, optimal weather during flowering, no heat spikes in summer and cool nights through harvest. The fruit of the vines shows the freshness of the season, as well as the ripeness, allowing Tirado and consultant Eric Boissenot to include both early ripening merlot and late-ripening petit verdot in this 2018 (in most years, they limit the blend to cabernets sauvignon and franc). The purity of that fruit is completely Andean—neither green nor dimpled, but precisely tuned in both the flavor and texture of its tannins. The wine has a quiet, gracious power, reflecting its Chilean character (there’s nothing either bold or austere about it; this is a wine of a place, without cabernet preconceptions). Its black currant and tart red cherry flavors have the crunch of walking through Andean snow, even as the sunniness of the fruit is cool, not at all cold, leaving a gracious impression. Great Andean cabernet has the capacity to age and develop for decades. If you’ve never invested in Chilean wine, this is the place to start.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I tasted two vintages of the top Cabernet Sauvignon, and even if the two years were quite different, the wines showed very good regularity. My preference was for the 2018 Don Melchor, from a cooler and rainier vintage that produced a very complete and balanced wine with the aid of 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot. It has power and finesse, integrated 14% alcohol and a classical profile with the ingredients to develop nicely in bottle. It's tasty and has polished tannins. 156,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in December 2019 and early January 2020.
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Wine Spectator
Powerful and well-structured, with vibrant acidity backing a lively blend of dark fruit and fresh-crushed cooking spice flavors. Cedary and savory notes in the midpalate, with a long finish filled with underbrush accents. Drink now through 2027.
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.