Winemaker Notes
#26 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
A wine with aromas of raspberries and cherries that provide freshness, along with underlying notes of tobacco, plum and cassis. After aging for 18 months in French oak barrels, the wine acquires spicy notes of cloves, licorice, red peppers and vanilla. On the palate it is tasty and balanced, with marked notes of cherry, blackberry and blackcurrant, which are typical of a wine which originates in sandy soil. The tannins are round and present due to the gravel and angular stones of the soil. The mineral soils of volcanic origin impart a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Gran Reserva Etiqueta Negra Cabernet Sauvignon leads with a beautiful, classic nose of black fruits, dried herbs, graphite and gravel dust. The palate is rich, seamless and velvety, finishing with a juicy, powerful finish that maintains focus, verve and a relatively understated nature. This was a highlight in the Tarapacá lineup and should drink well through its 10th birthday.
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Wine Spectator
Hibiscus and red currant notes pave the way for this elegant, suave-textured red. Doesn’t want for fruit, with fresh and juicy raspberry, Santa Rosa plum and red currant flavors, plus graphite and herbal shadings to keep this honest. Finishes with refined tannins. Nice length. Drink now through 2038.
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Wine Enthusiast
After several months of oak aging, this Cabernet offers balanced notes of wood spices on the nose and palate. Aromas of red cherries are elevated by a hint of vanilla. Smooth tannins provide support to chocolate and strawberry flavors, with hints of leaves.
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.