Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This a phenomenal white with sliced apple, papaya, and chalk with hints of slate. Turns to limes. Full body, with bright acidity and a racy acidity that goes on for minutes with the fruit. Dry austerity at the end gives it incredible character. This was fermented and aged in second and third year oak. Ten months. A triumph. A reductive structured style.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Chardonnay Wild Ferment Aconcagua Costa, from vineyards planted in 2004-2005 on schist soils on the coastal part of the Aconcagua valley, 10-12 kilometers from the sea, is fermented with indigenous yeasts in French oak barriques (and aged there for 10 months, 0% new). Fifteen percent of the wine went through malolactic fermentation, because it was a cold year and they wanted to give it more volume, with no battonage and only 13% alcohol. The nose is very clean, with well-integrated wood, orange peel, crisp aromas of citric fruits, high acidity, great freshness and minerality. The wine is light to medium-bodied, sharp and delineated, in a Chablis way.
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Wine Enthusiast
Popcorn and white-fruit aromas are toasty, nutty and appropriate. This is zesty and well-cut across the palate. Flavors of apple, peach, papaya and buttered movie popcorn finish oaky, briny and elegant, with a chiseled, acid-driven feel.
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.
The Aconcagua River runs east from the charming costal town of Valparaiso and bisects the land creating the valley after which it was named. While alluvial soils predominate the Aconcagua Valey along its river throughout, its east-west flow creates drastically different conditions on each of its ends. Its western, seaside vineyards, with clay and stony soils upon gently rolling hills, produce cool-climate varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Its inner region is one of Chile’s hottest and produces some of its best red wines. Panquehue in the inner Aconcagua is the site of Chile’s first Syrah vines, planted in 1993.