2013 Concha y Toro - Cabernet Sauvignon Concha Puente Alto Vineyard Marques de Casa
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Tasting notes
I tasted four Cabernets with winemaker Marcelo Papa, starting with the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Marqués de Casa Concha Puente Alto Vineyard from the classic Cabernet zone of Puente Alto in the Maipo Valley. In reality, it's a blend with 4% Cabernet Franc, 2% Syrah and 1% Petit Verdot. The vines grow on stony soils and produce classical reds of intense fruit and good structure. The wine fermented in stainless steel tanks with remontage during six to eight days and had a post fermentative maceration of eight to 12 additional days. It aged in 20% new barriques, 60% used barriques and 20% botti from Piemonte. This has a classical nose with the extra dimension and freshness of an earlier harvest and less oak (after an experimental Limited Edition in 2010). There are notes of tobacco, blackberries and graphite but also red cherries and some aromatic herbs that provide freshness. The palate shows even more changes with good grip and tension, with polished texture perhaps not as velvety as in the past, but with a little more tension and very good freshness; the wine is dry, showing the variety and origin, and quite naked -- something winemaker Marcelo Papa attributes to the use of the botti. Great value and typicity. Some 800,000 bottles are produced of this wine that was bottled over two weeks in November 2014.
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Jancis Robinson MW
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Crimson. Sweet and tobacco leaf-scented. Well put together but a tiny bit confected. (JR)
Opaque ruby, with a bright rim. Ripe cherry and dark berry aromas along with suggestions of licorice, pipe tobacco and vanilla. Sweet and broad in the mouth, offering sappy blackberry and cherry-vanilla flavors that pick up a smoky nuance with aeration. Closes spicy and long, with a lingering licorice quality and even tannins that come on late.
The other ‘Limited Edition’ contains some deliberately early-picked fruit apparently as the average picking time has moved back six weeks from how it used to be in the 1970s. But this is the mainstream bottling and the grapes will probably be picked late April. Very deep crimson. Complex satisfying blend of very ripe fruit and super-mellow tannins but with sufficient acidity. Very Napa texture but less sweet than many California wines. This should continue to age for many a year. Very long and with the alcohol evident on the finish but not soupy. Just a little tightly wound on the finish at the moment. VVGV (JR)