Winemaker Notes
The color of the Clos Apalta is intense and the density is readily apparent. The bouquet provides an explosion of red fruit, blackberry, black cherry and vibrant notes of raspeberry. The oak aging contributes a toasted vanilla and balsamic-like element in the nose. Then, instead of dispersing, all the scents blend together to give greater complexity, precious wood and cedar notes. On the palate, the first impression is density and volume. The wine is round, full and very concentrated. Slowly, a gentle tannic structure appears which provides the wine with a solid and well-structured character. The finish is long, velvety and silky.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is the first vintage of this wine and shows phenomenal depth and power. Full body, chewy and focused. Tannic yet polished. Love the chocolate and currant flavors. A blend of 95% merlot/carmenere and 5% cabernet sauvignon.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
One thousand, eight hundred cases of this extraordinary wine were produced from the oldest (50 years average age) non-irrigated vines controlled by Casa Lapostolle. The blend of 95% Merlot and 5% Carmenere, aged in 100% new French oak casks, and bottled with neither fining nor filtration, is a triumph in wine making. Yields were kept to a conservative 40 hectoliters per hectare, resulting in an opaque purple-colored wine with an exquisite nose of black cherry, blackberry, and creme de cassis fruit intertwined with subtle toasty oak and lead pencil. Full-bodied, with an opulent texture, sensational concentration, and layered nuances, this wine will have 10-15 years of longevity, although its fatness and low acidity give it immediate accessibility. This superb wine is a tour de force. Not surprisingly, the consulting winemaker was Pomerol's brilliant Michel Rolland. Anticipated maturity: now-2015. This wine is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 1. This wine may appear expensive vis a vis the run of the mill juice coming out of Chile, but in today's marketplace, this effort are sensibly priced. Serious wine tasters should give it a try.
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Wine Spectator
This showstopper has all the bells and whistles: deep color, lavish oak, concentrated ripe fruit, power and harmony in a polished package. The boysenberry, chocolate and licorice flavors are voluptuous and velvety; the wine has elegance to match its power. It's hard to find Chile in its character, but easy to take pleasure in the result. Merlot, Carmenère and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Clos Apalta is a state-of-the-art winery built to amplify Apalta's unique terroir through a lens of legendary French winemaking expertise. Under the watchful eye of Charles-Henri de Bournet and winemaker Andrea Leon, Clos Apalta remains among South America's most iconic producers.
The revolutionary six-story winery is built into the granite hillside of 'The Clos' in the proportions of the Golden Ratio, representing perfect natural equilibrium. In this way, the winery itself is an element of their minimal-intervention winemaking philosophy: hand harvesting, gentle extraction, wild yeast fermentation, minimal filtration, and 100% gravity-fed from the sorting table to the cellar.
“My mother, Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle, always dreamt of crafting the perfect wine. She spent years in search of an exceptional terroir to create a unique wine which would come to take its place as one of the best in the world. Having crossed several continents, she found the picture-perfect location of the Apalta Valley. She let the rolling mountains and sunlit air of the Apalta Valley speak to her, guessed the extraordinary potential, and tamed it. Clos Apalta was thus born, an enchanting wine with a shimmering texture and complexity that stimulates the senses and excites the imagination.” - Charles-Henri de Bournet
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.