Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is another gorgeous white with sliced apple, lemon rind, and just a hint of cream. Grapefruit. Full body, layered and beautiful. Energetic and vivid.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Aconcagua Costa Chardonnay was produced by fermenting the juice of the full clusters in barrel with indigenous yeasts. Only half of the volume underwent malolactic fermentation. The wine matured in 100% used French oak barrels in contact with the lees for ten months. The vines are only 12 kilometers away from the sea, and that provides for a marine, saline sensation in all these coastal wines. There are some orange peel aromas, hints of wet chalk and a hint of smoke. As with the Sauvignon, the palate shows better than the nose at this early stage, dry and with good tension, a fine texture and a long finish.
Rating: 91+
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.