Winemaker Notes
With a ruby red color, this Pinot Noir is a complex, multi-layered wine dominated by black cherries and a hint of black tea leaves. This vintage is more structured, with more prominent tannins, tension and freshness than previous ones.
Serve with charcuterie, Porcini mushroom risotto and grilled zucchini.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Vibrant red berries, cherries, rose hips and a touch of chalk on the nose. The excellent tannin structure holds the fruit back a bit, with a chalky texture and a lengthy finish. Fermentation was 50% whole cluster. Drink from 2026.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Amelia Pinot Noir derives from Limarí's Quebrada Seca and was fermented with 50% whole clusters in 15% new French barrique. A dark-fruited, woody, spice-driven nose with tobacco accents leads to a luscious palate with substantial density and admirable precision. It finishes on a lifted, vibrant note filled with a subtle influence of new wood and a gentle structuring grip from the stem inclusion. This is a lovely Pinot Noir from the Chilean coast rendered with a contemporary, elegantly lavish presentation.
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Wine Spectator
Gentle rose petal notes mix with savory and forest floor details before joining a juicy core of raspberry and red currant, supported by a minerally structure and acidity. A saline edge lends a mouthwatering quality to the finish around refined tannins and a late push of Rainier cherry. Drink now through 2036.
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.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
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.