Winemaker Notes
Beautiful cherry red color with ruby highlights. The nose displays aromas reminiscent of cherries, raspberries and a floral note of rose hips, with soft touches of tobacco and some moist earth. In the palate, flavors of fresh red fruits predominate, along with softer balsamic touches. A wine with good structure, with a refreshing acidity and a mineral sensation accompanied by fine and elegant tannins.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Pure blueberry and cranberry character, in addition to fresh currants and herbs, not to mention citrus and dried orange peel. Fruity and tangy, but with some good structure on the palate, thanks to a solid, tannin and acid backbone.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Max Reserva Pinot Noir was produced with gapes from Aconcagua and has 13% alcohol and very good freshness. 2018 was a very good year in the zone, and the grapes were very healthy. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and aged for 11 months in French oak barrels, 15% of them new. It follows the Max Reserva style of approachability, with clean varietal aromas and a touch of creamy oak, making it a slightly more commercial range. It's quite primary and young, with good ripeness, round tannins and juicy fruit. 49,152 bottles produced and bottled between May and July 2019. Rating: 90+
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
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.