Winemaker Notes
This great wine is the ideal companion for roast lamb or pig as well as meats cooked over coals and spiced with aromatic herbs and licorice.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Allspice and cherries to the nose with some olives. Medium- to full-bodied on the palate with moderate, natural acidity and smooth tannins. Nothing challenging here. Quite an honest, stripped-down style.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The peppery and spicy 2020 Cordillera Carmenere has pungent varietal aromas and flavors, good ripeness at 14% alcohol and good freshness and balance in the palate, where the tannins are fine-grained. 50,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in December 2019 after one year in barrels and foudres.
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Wine Spectator
A lovely expression, with chrysanthemum and cocoa nibs paving the way for rich cherry and red currant flavors that are enlivened by mineral acidity, lingering nicely around fine tannins and details of roasted red pepper.
Dark, full-bodied and herbaceous with a spicy kick, Carménère found great success with its move to Chile in the mid-19th century. However, the variety went a bit undercover until 1994 when many plantings previously thought to be Merlot, were profiled as Carménère. Somm Secret— Carménère is both a progeny and a great-grandchild of the similarly flavored Cabernet Franc.
The Maipo Valley is Chile’s most famous wine region. Set in the country’s Central Valley, it is warm and quite dry, often necessitating the use of irrigation. Alluvial soils predominate but are supplemented with loam and clay.
The climate in Maipo is best-suited for ripe, full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon (the region’s most widely planted grape), Merlot, Syrah and Carmenère, a Bordeaux variety that has found a successful home in Chile.
White wines are also produced with great prosperity, especially near the cooler coast, include Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.