Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2019 750 ML
JS98 – James Suckling Very perfumed and aromatic with blackcurrant, sweet-tobacco and Spanish-cedar character. Full-bodied with ultra fine tannins that build on the palate and take the fruit and other flavors to an endless finish. More refined than the perfect 2018 and almost as compelling. Drink in 2023 or after.
Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2020 750 ML
JS97 – James Suckling Deep and serious with black olives, blackberries, blueberries, tobacco leaf, sweet red capsicum, ash, dried meat and a hint of black chocolate. This is a more direct, full-bodied Don Melchor, filled with solid blackberries and wrapped by tight, fine-grained tannins. Long and deep. 92% cabernet sauvignon, 6% cabernet franc, 1% merlot and 1% petit verdot. Better after 2024. Producer Information Don Melchor is a Chilean premium wine brand composed of the singular eponymous Cabernet Sauvignon. It is owned by Concha y Toro, one of the largest wine producers in South America. The Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced entirely from a 127 hectare (315 acre) vineyard in the Puente Alto DO. Located in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, here an altitude of 2100 feet (640 meters) above sea level creates ideal terroir for viticulture. The vineyard was first planted in 1890 with pre-phylloxera Bordeaux rootstock and all the vines growing today are massal selections of those original plants. The inaugural vintage was Don Melchor was in 1987 and has since become consistently critically lauded. The 1988 vintage was the first Chilean wine to be included on Wine Spectator’s annual Top 100 Wines list and has since appeared again every few vintages – including several times in the Top 10. Don Melchor is named after Melchor de Concha y Toro, a Chilean businessman who brought Bordeaux varieties to Chile and planted them in the Maipo river valley in the 1880s. He also founded the Concha y Toro winery.