Winemaker Notes
Color: The color is intense and the density is readily apparent.
Aroma: 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.
Flavor: In the mouth, 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.
"Once again, arguably the best wine in Chile is this beauty from what may eventually become recognized as a world-class site for red wines—the dry-farmed, old-vines Apalta Vineyard. Fermentation involving big wood vats and the utmost in human attention yields a pure, stately wine that's equal parts power and finesse. Blendwise, it's mostly Merlot, and the flavors are all about kirsch, plum liqueur and chocolate. Give it several years to fully blossom."
-Wine Enthusiast Top 100
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This shows a beautiful balance of fruit with licorice, blackberries and hints of mineral. Just a touch of plum jam too. Full body, silky tannins and a gorgeous finish. It's drinking so beautifully now. Fabulous. A blend of 65% carmenere, 22% cabernet sauvignon and 13% malbec.
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.