Winemaker Notes
Its intense violet-red color and the aromatic black fruit and vanilla aromatic complexity highlight its full-bodiness in mouth, turning this Petit Verdot into a perfectly harmonic wine, typical of its variety.
This Petit Verdot perfectly pairs with grilled poultry as well as with traditional game meat: hare civet or a delicate rabbit confit with herbs. Bouillabaisse soup or tuna with tomato provide an interesting contrast highlighting its originality.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Deep and shy on the nose, offering some wet stones, black cherries, blue fruit and blue flowers. This is bold and powerful with extremely tight tannins that grow on the palate. Would rate even higher were there a bit more mid-palate flesh to fill in the muscular structure. Drink after 2024.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe black cherry and cranberry aromas shape the nose of this delicate red. Full-bodied, it has depth and lively acidity. Bright berry and herbaceous flavors blend with cedar on the palate. The finish is long and has a light note of leather.
One of the original Bordeaux varieties, Petit Verdot has a bold structure, color and aromas, which allow it to make a significant difference in Bordeaux Blends—even in modest amounts. While it isn’t planted in Bordeaux in great quantities anymore, its virtues are increasingly identified elsewhere. Somm Secret—Producing phenomenal single-varietal wines in hot and dry locations in the New World, Petit Verdot also finds a happy home in parts of Spain as well as in in Portugal’s Alentejo where it gracefully blends with the regions' indigenous varieties.
Considered one of the most environmentally sustainable countries in the world, Uruguay is also the fourth largest wine producing country in South America. But in contrast to its neighbors (Chile, Argentina and even Brazil) Uruguay keeps more in step with its European progenitors where land small holdings are most common. Most Uruguayan farms are tiny (averaging only about five hectares) and family-run, many dating back multiple generations. At this size, growers either make small amounts of wine for local consumption or sell grapes to a nearby winery. In all of Uruguay there are close to 3,500 growers but fewer than 300 wineries.
On these small plots of land, manual tending and harvesting, as well as low yields are favored; this small agricultural country has never had a need for large-scale chemical fertilizers or insecticides. Their thriving meat industry also follows the same standards: hormones have been banned since 1968 and today all Uruguayan beef is organic and grass-fed.
Uruguay’s best vineyards are on the Atlantic coast, in Canelones and Maldonado (where cooling breezes lessen humidity) or found hugging its border with Argentina. With a climate similar to Bordeaux and soils clay-rich and calcareous, Uruguay is perfect for Tannat, a thick-skinned, red variety native to Southwest, France. A great Tannat from Uruguay will have no lack of rich red and black fruit, lots of sweet spice and a hefty structure. Sometimes winemakers blend Merlot or Pinot noir with Tannat to soften up its rough edges.
The best Uruguayan whites include Sauvignon blanc and Albarino.