Vintage Report

APPELLATION

Apalta Valley, Colchagua, Chile.

BLEND

61% Carmenère, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot.

GROWING CONDITIONS

We had an outstanding harvest in 2007: just the right combination of factors to maintain balance and award great character to all of our wines and in Clos Apalta in particular. The wines have beautiful balance, good levels of acidity, deep color and very elegant fruit with velvet-like tannins. Spring-summer in 2007 brought cooler temperatures, causing a delay in the fruit set. Good temperatures by the end of Summer allowed an extension of the season. In March, with the beginning of Autumn, we continued to enjoy great conditions: the right luminosity and temperature allowed us to wait patiently for the perfect phenolic maturity.

VINIFICATION

Our winemaking philosophy is to respect the purity of the fruit that comes from our very best blocks in Apalta. A truly hand crafted wine, we nurture our vines and attend to every detail to preserve the potential of the grapes. We hand harvest the fruit very early in the morning in small cases. The grapes are 100% hand destemmed in our Clos Apalta Winery so we maintain complete control of the quality. We fill our French oak tanks by gravity. Then nature does its work, allowing native yeasts that slowly ferment the must into wine with temperature control less than 28°C. Manual pigeages during the fermentation and skin contact is done depending on the variety. We rack the young new wine straight into 100% new French oak barrels by gravity. Malolactic-fermentation happens in barrels, where the wine stays for 24 months, ageing patiently. The wine is bottled by gravity without any treatment or filtration.