Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Carménère feels fresh without being green; it's balsamic and spicy with some notes of tobacco leaf. It was sourced from a cooler vintage with nicely integrated oak after the élevage of around one year in mostly used French oak barrels. This is a more elegant vintage with good acidity and some grainy tannins, soft and fresh. This is a clear improvement over the 2012, less ripe and drier. There are more Carménères that are drinkable nowadays, which in the opinion of winemaker Francisco Baettig is because of a combination of a better understanding of the grape, better natural balance and less pyrazines as the vines age. This is a good example. Some 92,000 bottles were filled in February 2015.
Dark, full-bodied and herbaceous with a spicy kick, Carménère found great success with its move to Chile in the mid-19th century. However, the variety went a bit undercover until 1994 when many plantings previously thought to be Merlot, were profiled as Carménère. Somm Secret— Carménère is both a progeny and a great-grandchild of the similarly flavored Cabernet Franc.
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.