Winemaker Notes
Great with lamb, duck, and game.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A fresh, spicy carmenere with a touch of dark olives, paprika and tobacco leaves. Composed, medium-bodied palate with juicy berries and a nicely saline, linear finish. Long and really well balanced. Nothing flashy, all down to earth.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Single Vineyard Carmenere Alto de Piedras leads with an alluring, nuanced bouquet of dried flowers, fresh herbs and mixed red and black fruits. The palate combines a soft, supple texture with a tensile core, releasing into an elegant, layered finish that lingers with additional spice-driven accents and a graphite-driven persistence. This is a solid example of contemporary, mountainous Chilean Carménère.
Dark, full-bodied and herbaceous with a spicy kick, Carménère found great success with its move to Chile in the mid-19th century. However, the variety went a bit undercover until 1994 when many plantings previously thought to be Merlot, were profiled as Carménère. Somm Secret— Carménère is both a progeny and a great-grandchild of the similarly flavored Cabernet Franc.
The Maipo Valley is Chile’s most famous wine region. Set in the country’s Central Valley, it is warm and quite dry, often necessitating the use of irrigation. Alluvial soils predominate but are supplemented with loam and clay.
The climate in Maipo is best-suited for ripe, full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon (the region’s most widely planted grape), Merlot, Syrah and Carmenère, a Bordeaux variety that has found a successful home in Chile.
White wines are also produced with great prosperity, especially near the cooler coast, include Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.