Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2012 Seña is the product of a warm year combined with the peak of the overripe, oaky approach in style. A blend of 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Carménère, 12% Merlot, 7% Malbec and 6% Petit Verdot aged for 22 months in two thirds new French barrels. Garnet red in hue. The sun and heat made their mark on the nose, which is jammy with soy sauce aromas. It’s potent in the mouth with somewhat dry tannins. It has evolved more rapidly than other vintages.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
A phenomenal red with aromas of blackberries, licorice, sandalwood and hot stones that turns to cigar box and hints of sweet tea. Full body, incredible depth and concentration, yet there's also agility and playfulness to this. Long, fascinating and balanced. It talks to you. The greatest Seña ever. (Winemaker and owner agree.) There's wonderful purity and beauty. Made from biodynamically grown grapes. Better in 2017.
The 2012 Sena is from a cool vineyard on a rocky hillside with some clay, in the middle of the Aconcagua Valley, where there is still some influence from the Pacific Ocean. This wine has always been a blend, and in 2012 it is half Cabernet Sauvignon, complemented by Carmenere, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. Bright and focused, with a nose mixing red fruit, it is also bright-colored, with ripe black fruit and balsamic notes in the shape of tobacco and cedar wood, with a medium-bodied palate, very good freshness and acidity, sophisticated, polished and fine-grained tannins. This is still a baby, but the silky texture makes it accessible now, while the complexity should come with more time.
“A phenomenal red with aromas of blackberries, licorice, sandalwood and hot stones that turns to cigar box and hints of sweet tea. Full body, incredible depth and concentration, yet there’s also agility and playfulness to this. Long, fascinating and balanced. It talks to you. The greatest Sena ever (Winemaker and owner agree.) There’s wonderful purity and beauty. Made from biodynamically grown grapes. Better in 2017.” Tasted June 2014
About the producer
Seña – literally meaning “signal” – was Chile’s first icon wine. In the early 1990s, the country had a reputation mainly for lower-end, high-volume wines, but Eduardo Chadwick, owner and president of Viña Errázuriz, set out to change that.