Winemaker Notes
Clean and bright, light yellow colour. It is a complex and layered wine, dominated by minerality, white flowers, pears and int. It combines the structure of the red clay very well with the minerality of the soil. It is long, tense and refreshing and very long on the palate, with an attractive salinity on the finish.
This wine pairs well with fish and shellfish as well as with creamy cheese like Camembert and Brie.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very serious and complex aromas of oysters, cooked apples, fresh seaweed and crushed stone. Full-bodied with a phenolic tension and depth. Chewy and impressive, with a phenolic finish. Excellent structure. No malolactic. Super drinkability and possibility to age. Drink now or hold.
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Vinous
Limarí is a unique region. Its dry, cold climate characterized by cloudy mornings and sunny evenings, along with its calcareous and clayish soils, give it a distinctiveness compared to other white wine regions around the world. The 2022 Chardonnay Amelia encapsulates all these conditions, especially in a cold vintage. Winemaker Marcelo Pappa aimed to showcase this character by aging the wine for 12 months, with 90% in old French barrels and 10% in new ones. This greenish-yellow wine reveals aromas of lime, herbs, green apple and pineapple. The true difference lies on the palate: a saline, compact and vibrant Chardonnay with a dry, vivid and enduring finish. Undoubtedly one of the finest white wines in South America.
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Wine Spectator
Deftly balances fresh acidity against richness, offering toasted almond and floral tangelo flavors up front, which fold into salted peach, pineapple and clove elements. The finish features sea spray accents and echoes the core flavors.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is creamy and lemony with mouthwatering acidity. The nose offers ginger, lemon and mango. Balanced flavors of chamomile, citrus fruit and baking spices appear on the tasty palate and extend into a fresh finish.
Founded in 1883, Vina Concha y Toro is Latin America's leading producer and occupies an outstanding position among the world’s most important wine companies, currently exporting to 135 countries worldwide. Uniquely, it owns around 9,500 hectares of prime vineyards, which allows the company to secure the highest quality grapes for its wine production. Concha y Toro's portfolio includes a wide range of successful brands at every price point, from the top of the range Don Melchor and Almaviva to the flagship brand Casillero del Diablo and innovative stand-alone brands such as Palo Alto and Maycas del Limarí. The company has 3,162 employees and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Part of the Coquimbo region and a key location for pisco production, the Limari Valley is one of the northern most wine producing regions of Chile. The other two, also part of Coquimbo, are the Elqui and less-developed Choapa Valleys. While more vineyard area is dedicated to pisco production (via the grapes of Muscat of Alexandria, Pedro Jimenez, Moscatel de Asturia and Torontel), the acreage under vine for still wine production has increased. The intense sunlight in the Limari Valley, coupled with little rainfall as well as the cooling effect of the Humboldt Current from the Pacifc Ocean, all make the area ideal for cool climate grapes like Chardonnay and Pinot noir.