2010 Duqueza Chardonnay

The 2010 Duquesa d’A is a barrel fermented Chardonnay from a vineyard in Alto Cachapoal on limestone soils. The wine goes through malolactic in its second year and it has an élevage of two years in 50% new barriques. The nose is explosive, very open, exuberant, exotic and leesy; the wine is ripe with plenty of yellow fruit and some signs of evolution, a honeyed not,e and also a little heat in the shape of hay and straw. The palate is full-bodied, denoting very good ripeness but sharp acidity (the bottled wine has a pH of 3.2, very low), which makes it more compensated. There is an incredible minerality, which gives the wine length and a very tasty finish. An explosive, mineral Chardonnay, quite different from the 2011, but almost as good. 2,700 bottles produced.

60% new oak. High limestone content in this very high vineyard in the Andes. Full malo (unlike the Clos des Fous Chardonnays). Even more smoky and reductive than the 2009 just tasted. Lots of struck match. Again, massively powerful but firmly dry and dense. Amazingly fresh acidity with all this richness and breadth of flavour. (JH)

Louis-Michel Liger-Belair’s project with Francois Massoc and Pedro Parra at 900 m way up in the Andes near Coya on gravel with limestone where the winery is – not unlike Tupungato on the other side of the Andes. (They have released a Cabernet but not their Pinot yet.) A combination of alluvial and colluvial. NHB. Very deep gold. I wonder why it is quite so old? Definite burgundian overtones on the nose. Pretty damned impressive. Pungent and very dense. Very long and well constituted. Full of life and density but absolutely bone dry and savoury. Massoc makes his own barrels apparently. I’m intrigued by how late they release the wines but this is great stuff. (JR)