#56 in Top 100 World Wines, 2025. The carmenere character is more obvious and confidently transparent this year, but in a really complex and layered way. Cedar, black olives, graphite, paprika and hints of pepper and iodine. It’s well rounded, with a light sanguine note to the ripe fruit. The tannins are fine-grained yet polished. The lengthy finish doesn't want to stop. 68% carmenere, 22% cabernet sauvignon and 10% merlot. Drink from 2027.
#65 in Top 100, 2025. The 2022 Clos Apalta is 68% Carménère, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot from Apalta. This aged primarily in French oak vats with 10% of the blend in 225-liter Bordeaux barrels. It opens with black fruit, a delicate ash note, underbrush, and gentle spice over subtle oak. Blueberry, blackberry and sour cherry aromas complete the aromatic profile. On the palate, this is dry for the house style, with medium structure, refined grip and juicy flow. The finish is long and finely tuned. This vintage offers a more restrained version of Clos Apalta. It's less opulent than usual but with captivating nuance and poise. The 2022 is a terroir-driven response to a cooler year.
#6 in Top 100, 2025. When Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle purchased vineyards in Apalta in 1994, her undertaking of excellence began with a vision to create a world-class wine. Few wineries have achieved such notoriety with Carmenère as Clos Apalta, which has made the under-the-radar grape the star of its flagship wine, earning Wine of the Year honors in 2008 with its Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2005. Marnier-Lapostolle’s son Charles de Bournet, in charge since 2013, and chief winemaker Andrea Leon have been honing the winery’s efforts on its Apalta estate and its mosaic of exceptional terroir with a forward-looking mindset for relentless improvement on this iconic Chilean winery’s history.
Gorgeous nose, pixelated, not shouting but lovely expressions of dried herbs, toast, some sweet spices, blackcurrant and crystalline blue fruit and lead pencil. Broad and structured but so graceful with delicate and grippy tannins that fill the mouth and leave a coating of powdery, graphite edge chalkiness. Compact but sculpted, you can feel the muscles here with both ripe and cooling elements. Precise and characterful. Juicy as well as mouthwatering with a depth that is so captivating. Linear and straight but still with grip and intensity. A knockout wine! Ageing 21 months in 73% new oak, 27 two-year-old French oak 225l barrels. 3.78pH. Cooler and drier conditions than in 2021 with lots of sun and light and excellent sanitary conditions although 35% lower yields. Harvested on March 11.
A particularly pretty and floral expression of Clos Apalta, the 2022 Clos Apalta is beautifully lush and expressive on the nose, combining a deep core of black and blue fruit aromas with pencil lead, camphor and bramble accents, developing dried purple flower notes that continue to gain volume with aeration. The palate displays the house's quintessentially lavish yet graceful style before concluding with a long, staining, and saturated finish that blends sweet fruits with a toasty, oak-driven backbone, polished tannins and bright acidity. As always, this is quite a stylized expression of Apalta but one that retains a sense of nuance. This blend of 68% Carménère, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot fermented and aged in a mix of barrique, puncheon and large cask.
Winery Notes
Color: Deep and inky purple red robe with dark blue edges.
Nose: The nose is intense, spicy overlapping with layers of red and black fruit, and cedar notes.
Palate: Elegant tannins open towards a mid-palate that combines finesse and concentration, round and fresh. Exceptionally long finish.