Winemaker Notes
This was a superb year for Alto Jahuel our Casa Real 2018 reflects the balance and great depth of this fantastic vintage. The wine has an intense and deep ruby red color, showing pure aromas of blackcurrants, ripe cherries, graphite and soft cedar notes. The mouth is concentrated and precise with rich tannins that add texture and structure to the length of Casa Real. This wine that is long and persistent.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Big and rich, with an unctuous blend of dark plum, cherry, tar and blackberry flavors that are supported by suave tannins and acidity. Pure and minerally midpalate, with a long finish that's filled with plush creaminess to the cardamom and clove accents. Drink now through 2028.
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James Suckling
Blackberry, blackcurrant, clove, peppercorn and tobacco-leaf aromas. It’s medium-to full-bodied with rounded, well-integrated tannins. So smooth and creamy with polished spice and chocolate notes to close. Two to three years will really put this in place, but it’s already very attractive.
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Wine Enthusiast
A smooth and attractive nose is anchored by plum and cassis aromas. The palate on this benchmark Chilean Cabernet is electric in feel and boosted by firm but supple tannins and bright acidity. Plum, cassis and cherry flavors are dreamy, while piqued energy reemerges on a vigorous finish.
Cellar Selection
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Wine & Spirits
Sebastián Labbé makes this wine from a hillside parcel of 50-year-old cabernet vines at the Santa Rita estate in Alto Jahuel. His 2018 is a beehive of energy, a rush of flavor in bright red fruit, sage, jasmine and rose. In recent years, some of Chile’s top wines have found an eager market in China, and this one feels particularly appropriate to the flavors it might encounter there, from the dark richness of hoisin in red-cooked pork to the glaze on a crisp-skinned Peking duck.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I found an unusually modern and fruit-driven 2018 Casa Real Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine that has for a long time been one of the icons of traditionalism in Chile. It's juicy and ripe with a soft palate and round tannins, relatively simple for the price. 14,500 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2020 after 18 months in barrel, 83% of them new, but the oak is unnoticeable.
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.
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.