Winemaker Notes
A pretty red color with ruby-red highlights. Expressive on the nose, with a broad range of aromas that denote tremendous complexity, featuring red fruit such as cherry, cassis, and raspberry, subtler notes of red currant, tobacco, and hazelnuts, and some balsamic tones. Voluptuous on the palate, this wine features extremely fine, firm, and sweet tannins along with bitter chocolate, cherries, and sweet spice flavors. Its outstanding acidity gives the wine a youthful, refreshing feeling, which presages an excellent cellaring potential.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is fabulous with currants, blackberries, raspberries, oyster shell and iodine aromas and flavors. Full body, superfine tannins and a gorgeous austerity plus seriousness. So fine-grained. 75% cabernet sauvignon, 12% carmenere, 8% petit verdot and the rest malbec. Better in 2017.
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Wine Enthusiast
Cheesy oak, vanilla, licorice and herb aromas accent an otherwise ripe-fruit bouquet. Like many of Chile’s top 2012s, this is a heavy, ripe wine with a jammy wall-to-wall feel. Raspberry, cassis and herbal olive flavors finish earthy and loamy, with a warm tobacco note. Drink through 2018.
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Vinous
The 2012 Founder's Reserve Don Maximiano is a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Carménère, 8% Petit Verdot and 5% Malbec from Panquehue, Aconcagua Valley, and spent 22 months in 63% new barrels. Dark terra-cotta in color. The complex, evolving nose presents notes of dried figs, cassis, bay leaf, thyme and ash plus hints of jam. In the mouth, the tannins are firm and fine with good grip, while the flow is dry, the intense flavor tuned up by subtle pyrazine aromas. An unusual example of a well-aged, sun-kissed wine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Don Maximiano Founder's Reserve is basically Cabernet Sauvignon with about 12% Carmenere, 8% Petit Verdot and 5% Malbec, from their oldest vineyards. It has more grapes adding freshness as they come from the stony soils closer to the river to compensate a warmer vintage. It has a classical aroma of cassis, blackberries, tobacco, graphite and cedar wood, with a medium to full-bodied palate with abundant, fine and polished but still a little grainy tannins, big bones and good concentration. It has the balance and stuffing to age well. Drink 2015-2023.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
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.