Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Keeping with past performances, Herencia is again one of Chile’s best Carmenères. This is bold, toasty and ripe on the nose, with tobacco and vanilla nuances. The palate is huge but in shape, while toasty, chocolaty flavors of herbal plum and berry end chewy, stacked and deep.
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Wine Spectator
This linear and muscular red offers firmly tannic grip to its flavors of dried plum, roasted cherry and dark currant, extending with notes of tobacco leaf. Chewy tannins appear on the finish, which reveal touches of tar.
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.