Winemaker Notes
Blend: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot, 6% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Domus Aurea showed a penetrating nose with plenty of aromatic herbs, dried flowers, pollen and spices with a brightness of fruit that sets it apart from the rest of Cabernet from Maipo. The vineyard has some 4% Cabernet Franc intermixed in the old vineyard (planted in 1970) that is used for this wine. It's very balsamic and with a tasty palate with abundant, fine-grained tannins with the classical Cabernet texture. This is always balanced and elegant, quite traditional and expressing the place from which it comes.
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.