Winemaker Notes
Pair with skirt steak with caramel and rosemary or with filet mignon with rice.
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Carmenere
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wonderful aromas of blackberry, blackcurrant, and hot stones. Full-bodied, chewy and intense with great depth and intensity. Muscular tannins, from biodynamically grown grapes, best ever? Old vine magic. Needs three to four years to soften.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
For more than two decades, the Lapostolle Cuvée Alexandre Cabernet Sauvignon has been one my favorites from this grape variety south of the equator. The 2014 vintage is majestic and beautiful. The wine's aromas and flavors of black fruit, refreshing minerality, and hints of oak make it an excellent match with a thick and juicy veal chop. I would advise enjoying some now and putting away a few bottles for a decade in the cellar. (Tasted: October 1, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Cuvee Alexandre Cabernet Sauvignon comes from vines planted in 1920 on granitic soils in the Apalta Valley in Colchagua. It contains 10% Carmenere. Most of the volume fermented in stainless steel tanks, and 20% did it in oak vats. The wine matured in French oak barrels for ten months. In Colchagua, 2014 was less warm than 2015, and this Cabernet seems to have behaved very well this year. It's quite classical and shows balsamic aromas of camphor and cedar wood with a core of black fruit. The palate shows the consistency of the tannins of the variety, with a good mid palate.
Lapostolle was founded in 1994 by Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband Cyril de Bournet upon their discovery of a unique clos in the Apalta Valley sheltering 100-year-old pre-phylloxera vines. They quickly realized its potential for producing world-class wines and embarked on their family’s next chapter in the New World. Alexandra brought generations of French winemaking tradition and expertise to the rugged landscape of the Colchagua Valley.
Today, Charles de Bournet, the seventh generation, leads the winery in its newest chapter of innovation, punctuated by the official recognition of the Apalta DO in 2018. Together with Andrea León, Technical Director & Winemaker, Lapostolle continue to craft wines that honor the winery’s credo: French in essence, Chilean by birth.
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.
Well-regarded for intense and exceptionally high quality red wines, the Colchagua Valley is situated in the southern part of Chile’s Rapel Valley, with many of the best vineyards lying in the foothills of the Coastal Range.
Heavy French investment and cutting-edge technology in both the vineyard and the winery has been a boon to the local viticultural industry, which already laid claim to ancient vines and a textbook Mediterranean climate.
The warm, dry growing season in the Colchagua Valley favors robust reds made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Malbec and Syrah—in fact, some of Chile’s very best are made here. A small amount of good white wine is produced from Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.