6+ $145.52 | 12+ $139.99
100 Points – James Suckling – The aromas of blackberry leaves and iodine are wild and exotic here with mussel shells and earth underneath. Full-bodied, tight and chewy with powerful tannins that show muscle. It?s structured and powerful. Dense and very, very deep. Don?t touch this until 2025.
98 Points – Tim Atkin – Brilliant winemakers come into their own in difficult vintages and it’s fascinating to hear Michel Friou talk about how he dealt with the contrasting challenges of the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons. If the former was very good indeed, the latter is the best young vintage of Almaviva I’ve ever tasted. It?s a wonderfully complex, harmonious blend of Cabernet Sauvignon with 23% Carmen?re, 5% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot and 2% Merlot. Fine, elegant and subtle, with good density, scented cigarbox oak and a lovely interplay between acidity, cassis and bramble fruit weight and 77% new oak. My Chilean red wine of the year. 2023-32
95 Points – Tasting Panel – A collaboration between Vi?a Concha y Toro and Baron Philippe de Rothschild has yielded this remarkable blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Carm?n?re, 5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot, and 2% Merlot. It?s silky and lush, with length, complexity, and a multifaceted palate of ripe plum, soft herbs, and toasty oak.
94 Points – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate – 2017 was an unusual year?warm and extremely dry, with 178 liters of rain, but there was some rain after the 2016 harvest, so the soil had some water]?and the harvest and the whole cycle were two to three weeks earlier than normal. That is the context for the 2017 Almaviva, whose vines saw extremely low yields (10 hectoliters per hectare in the older parts, 36 hectoliters per hectare in the young vines) and produced concentrated juice. The bottled blend is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Carmen?re, 5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot and 2% Merlot, quite similar to the 2016, and the alcohol level reached 14.6% with a pH of 3.65 and 4.9 grams of acidity (measured in tartaric acid). It matured in French oak barriques (825 of them new) for 19 months. It’s a riper, rounder and softer vintage, with moderate acidity and a tender mouthfeel, and it is really marked by very high temperatures all year round. They used a little more Petit Verdot in the blend, but there is no over-ripeness.
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