Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesA generous array of ripe black and blue fruit with pink peppercorns, green olives, dried flowers, toffee and chocolate orange. It’s full-bodied with firm, creamy and velvety tannins. Long and polished. Lovely salted caramel and olives at the end. Keeps going. Unfolds on the finish. 70% carmenere, 18% merlot, 8% cabernet sauvignon and 4% petit verdot. Drink or hold.
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. Carmenère, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2035.
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. Best After 2022
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.
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.
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.
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.