Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Even if the year has a reputation for being too warm and produced very ripe wines, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Domus Aurea showed very good freshness. It's a year of tremendous concentration but overall keeping the character of the place, which to me is the signature of this wine. It's always intensely balsamic, powerful and elegant, with notes of wild herbs and flowers.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Enthusiast
Ripe berry and cassis aromas are broadened by open-grain oak. This Cabernet is big and tannic. Toasty chocolaty berry flavors with a full complement of oaky support maintain a chocolaty essence on a finish that confirms how whole and thorough this is. Drink this warm-vintage wine through 2022.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
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.