2013 Ocio Pinot Noir

The top of the range for Pinot Noir is the 2013 Pinot Noir Ocio, a wine produced with the fruit from vineyards planted in Casablanca from material sourced from the oldest known Pinot Noir vineyard in Colchagua, which dates from 1968 with 15% of grapes from San Antonio. This is a blending exercise they do after malolactic with the help of Martin Prieur, so the wine can change from vintage to vintage. The uncrushed grapes fermented in open vats and after one week they were foot trodden. After fermentation completed, the wine was put in French barrique for its élevage, but 10% of the volume was kept in egg-shaped cement vats of one year. The nose shows great complexity with more depth than the 20 Barricas, mixing wild berries, but with one extra degree of aromatic power and nuances. The palate shows very good inner strength, a kind of elegant power while showing lightness, combining those two complex characteristics. It's a profound, sharp Pinot with very good tension, very good acidity and length. Super! It felt very Burgundian and I wondered how it would do in a blind tasting against some top Burgundies. So I took a spare bottle and served it double blind against a Grand Cru from Gevrey; to our surprise, nobody identified is as Chile, and in fact more people preferred it to the Burgundy. A revelation. Grand Cru quality at a very reasonable price. 12,000 bottles produced.