Winemaker Notes
#6 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
The Merlot offers up black fruit aromas such as black cherry and blackberry, all with wonderful freshness on the palate. The Cabernet Sauvignon, in particular from old pre-phylloxera vines, offers up aromas of red fruit (raspberry) and black fruit (blackcurrant, blueberry) with some ripe bell pepper and black olive notes. As it matures it develops pepper, crème de cassis, leather and charred notes (smoke, toast and chocolate). The Carmenère, brightly colored with hints of purple, is rich with rounded tannins. There are delicate cherry aromas on the nose, subtly balanced out by spicy touches of black pepper. Freshness on the palate ensures a beautiful finish of black fruit, smoke, cocoa, leather and tobacco notes.
Blend: 75% Carménère, 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Extremely aromatic with red currants, blackcurrants, spices, iodine, paprika and subtle hints of white pepper. Fresh flowers, fresh sage, lavender and some pine needles and sandalwood. Medium-bodied with perfectly integrated tannins that go on for minutes with refined and harmonious fruit that integrates beautifully into the wine, giving it a weightless structure that shows class and verve. Endless balance and length. It’s so balanced that you could drink it now but it will age for decades.
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Vinous
The 2021 Clos Apalta comprises 75% Carménère, with the remainder filled out by Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, sourced from the eponymous Apalta Vineyard. It was aged for 24 months in oak barrels, two-thirds of which were new. This dark purple wine reveals nuanced aromas of graphite, herbs, dried plums and blackberry marmalade, complemented by mint, boldo and garrigue-like notes over a green bell pepper layer. Plush and ample on the palate, it is lifted by a mild refreshing quality that adds a rare nimbleness to its flow. This long-lasting red is a serious wine, less influenced by Michel Rolland's style than in other years, as the fresh vintage imparted a lighter, less ripe and more expressive character. Clos Apalta is one of those rare Chilean wines that reliably showcases the characteristics of each vintage while maintaining a consistent house style. That steadiness is a boon for consumers, as it allows them to appreciate the impact of different vintages, which is a significant part of the allure of high-quality wines.
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Wine Spectator
Aromatically complex and intriguing, this offers a spiced plum pastry note that melds with petrichor, pine, dried violet and cocoa powder elements. The palate is round and richly textured, with Szechuan peppercorn accents to the concentrated black cherry, plum and cassis center. Everything comes together harmoniously on the finish and lingers, with present but integrated tannins. A stunner that should develop nicely in the cellar. Carmenère, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot.
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.