Clos Apalta Le Petit Clos 2019
-
Suckling
James -
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert -
Dunnuck
Jeb - Decanter
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
#40 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2023
Intense dark red garnet with violet edges. On the nose, expressive notes of well ripe fruit opening towards well integrated oak. The palate opens toward a concentrated structure, with well defined tannins and good density. Long in the finish.
Blend: 49% Carmenère, 30% Merlot, 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Aromatic and herbal nose of thyme, bay leaves, currants, blackberries, licorice and pomelo pith. Medium-bodied with a fleshy, delicious and open palate. Ripe tannins. Plush and caressing finish.
-
Wine Spectator
An elegant, open-textured and well-contoured blend, offering alluring balsam, cassis and dark chocolate notes that fold over onto the rich palate. Picks up crushed red currant and espresso-laced berry flavors, which have great depth and linger effortlessly around suave tannins, echoing back to the core flavors.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The second wine from Clos Apalta, the 2019 Le Petit Clos was produced with a blend of 49% Carmenere, 30% Merlot, 18% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot from granite soils. It fermented with indigenous yeasts with four to five weeks of maceration with manual punchdowns and malolactic in French oak barrels. The élevage was eight months in new barrels and a further 14 months in 50% new oak and 50% second use. It's a ripe and powerful red with 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.6. It has a nose of herbs and spices, and it's creamy and lush, with a juicy texture and a full body with an herbal finish. It has mellow acidity and a soft mouthfeel through round and fine tannins.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The second wine from this notable estate is the 2019 Le Petit Clos, a blend of 49% Carménère, 30% Merlot, 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Petit Verdot, raised in 50% new French oak. It has a great bouquet of ripe red and black currants, leafy tobacco, and chocolate, and there's a distinct Bordeaux-like lead pencil character that emerges with time in the glass. Possessing full-bodied richness, a lush, supple, forward mouthfeel, good freshness, and outstanding length, it's one heck of a second wine that should evolve gracefully over the coming decade.
-
Decanter
Wow, deeply scented with a rich nose full of dark chocolate, lots of floral touches, smells sunny and rich. Seriously spiced on the palate, the sweet and dry spice lingers on the tongue spreading out the mouth with crushed peppercorns, juniper, caramel, toasted wood, violets and cherry jam. A lot going on here, strong and bold, quite in your face, giving tons of energy and character still with acidity that doesn't make it heavy and rather plumps up the richness without detracting. Quite woody, you feel the oak in the texture and richness but it's still bouncy and vibrant, good crunchiness, forward, open but with bright freshness. Balanced but by no means a wallflower of a wine. I love the mintiness at the end. A great food wine. They did well to balance the heat from one of the warmest and driest vintages in recent time. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend.
Other Vintages
2020-
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert
-
Parker
Robert -
Suckling
James - Vinous
-
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert -
Spectator
Wine
-
Suckling
James -
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert
-
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Spectator
Wine
-
Spirits
Wine & -
Suckling
James -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert
Everything starts in 1994 when Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband Cyril de Bournet first arrived in Chile’s Colchagua Valley. They quickly realized its potential for producing world-class wines. This ideal setting, which was revitalized in 1995, was home to vines originating from pre-phylloxera rootstock brought from Bordeaux in the middle of XIX century. Member of a renowned family that has been dedicated for several generations to the production of high-quality spirits and wines, Alexandra with legendary wine expertise, brought exceptional French winemaking practices to Chile and pioneered the development of fine quality wines from the region. Today it is Charles de Bournet Marnier Lapostolle, seventh generation of the family, who holds the reins of the Winery. Together with him is Jacques Begarie, Technical Director & Winemaker, under the advice of the famous winemaker Michel Rolland, who is personally involved in the whole production of Clos Apalta. In its short history, Clos Apalta wines have consistently ranked highly (90+ points) among reputable wine trade publications, a testament of the rigorous standards implemented at the winery to produce outstanding wines. Clos Apalta's philosophy is as simple as it is ambitious: to express terroir in the wines, looking for excellence, elegance and character in a handcrafted wine that can talk about the amazing place that is the Apalta Valley.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
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.