Wine Advocate (98)

The amazing, pedal to the metal/full throttle/balls to the wall, sweet 1910 Pedro Ximenez Solera is a dark amber-colored, full-bodied, unctuously-textured beauty that should be sipped and savored slowly and carefully at the end of a meal with a plate of cashews. It is remarkable stuff. The price is not high for what it represents.

Vinous (94)

The 2018 Le Petit Clos is a blend of 53% Carménère, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot from Apalta, Colchagua. Dark garnet in hue. The complex nose offers plum jam, hints of smoke, herbs and pepper against a backdrop of cigar box and graphite. A ripe, broad, full-bodied red with precise acidity and a juicy, grippy flow (quite accomplished for the style), it ends with an intense, ripe finish. A red to hold on to.

James Suckling (98)

Stare into the abyss and it will stare back at you! This has such an incredible depth of dried-flower and fresh-herb notes that you could get lost in the bouquet, before reaching the sleek and enormously mineral palate. So pristine and dazzling at the super long finish. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (96)

This is from one of the coolest vintages in memory but delivers fresh tobacco and currant aromas and flavors. Full body, chewy tannins and plenty of currant leaf and stone character. A structured and very solid Don Melchor. 91% cabernet sauvignon and 9% cabernet franc. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (98)

Wonderful aromas of stones, mint and blackcurrants. Sweet tobacco. Tile and rust. So aromatic. This is the best Don Melchor I have ever tasted. Full body, very soft yet firm and silky. It has tension, intensity and balance. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (98)

This is a red with extremely creamy tannins that are fine and polished, giving length and definition to the wine. Full-bodied, yet tight and compact with plenty of currants and fresh herbs. Extremely long and flavorful. Drinking beautifully now.

James Suckling (96)

The purity and reserve to this is wonderful with blackcurrants and crushed stone. Some redcurrants, as well. Full body. Polished and refined tannins give this a pleasant, caressing texture. Tight and focused. Elegance with structure. Drinkable now, but better in 2022.

James Suckling (99)

Fantastic aromas of blackcurrants and other dark fruit with crushed stone, iron and oysters, following through to a full body that shows incredible energy and depth, offering ripe yet fresh fruit, together with bright herbs and earth. Precision and balance of the intensity of the vintage. Layered. Perhaps the greatest Don Melchor ever made. Try after 2022.

James Suckling (100)

This is amazing. The vibrancy and energy in this wine is stunning. The complexity of aromas are breathtaking with flowers, blackcurrants, raspberries and peaches. Full-bodied, yet ever so refined and polished with impeccable texture and beauty. The length is marvelous. This is a testimony to balance, harmony and transparency in a great red. Drink after 2023.

James Suckling (99)

Ashy graphite, cassis, iron, blackberries and a hint of cigar box and chocolate. Lots of violets, too. Rich and intense with a full-bodied palate. Showing density and very fine but structured tannins. Long and intense finish with lots of flavors. 93% cabernet sauvignon, 4% cabernet franc and 3% merlot. One of the best over the last few years. Drinkable now, but will fledge and hold very well in the next 20 years.

Tim Atkin MW (96)

Given the price of some Chilean icons these days, Coyam remains one of the best value reds in the country, right up there with the country's top red blends. Based on Syrah and Carmenère with the remaining 19% made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha, Malbec, Carignan, Tempranillo and Mourvèdre, this is wonderfully detailed and complex. Racy and mineral, with scented oak, mint, wild herb and sweet spice undertones and a core of inky damson and black cherry fruit. 2022-30

Vinous (96)

The 2020 Coyam is a blend of 38% Syrah, 37% Carménère, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Carignan, 4% Garnacha, 4% Mourvèdre, 2% Petit Verdot, 1% Malbec and 1% Tempranillo from the Los Robles vineyard in Colchagua. It was aged for 18 months, 75% in barrels and the rest in foudres and eggs. A rich purple in the glass. The complex nose features nuanced aromas ranging from blackberry to blueberry and currant with hints of cedar and spice. In the mouth, it’s juicy with a grippy texture and delicate, concentrated but relaxed tannins before the lengthy finish. It seems that the healthy biodynamic vineyard was able to withstand the warmth of 2020. An extremely well-made wine that handled the conditions with aplomb.

James Suckling (98)

This shows superb finesse and balance with wonderful, harmonious fruit and tannin tones that give the wine purity and focus. Dried spices, blackberries, walnuts and tile. Deep, contained structure with pure, fine tannins. The finish is incredible and goes on for minutes. A blend of 56% syrah, 31% carmenere, and 13% cabernet sauvignon. From biodynamically grown grapes. One for the cellar. Better after 2022, but already fantastic.

Wine Advocate (99)

After 20 harvests comes their first Cru, the 2018 Cru Truquilemu, which they describe as "Truqui with more stuffing." It comes from a small triangular section with a lower natural yield, with greater concentration and a darker, more brooding personality. It was fermented with more stems than the other Truquilemu and with a bit of Syrah, which adds weight, depth and texture. After fermenting pieces of the vineyard separately over many years, two distinct personalities emerged, and they have bottled them separately since 2018. Truquilemu has become more ethereal after the separation, and this is sturdier, with extra stuffing but more tension. The wine has less alcohol (12.8%, and 12.5% in 2019!!) higher acidity (7.43 grams measured in tartaric acid) and an incredible pH of 3.18, amazing parameters of freshness and restraint. This is not heavier, it just seems to have the same personality but with more layers. It was produced in a very simple and slow way, fermenting in open-top lagars with some full clusters and adding lignified stems to avoid carbonic maceration, with indigenous yeasts; malolactic took 11 months (!), and the aging in used and neutral barrel was extended over two winters. For the 2018 vintage, they filled 3,449 bottles in January 2020.

Wine Advocate (98)

In 2018, they bottled three Cariñena-based wines from Truquilemu in Empedrado (now a DO) in Maule. The 2018 Truquilemu Vineyard, they reckon, is more focused, sultry and ethereal than ever. It comes from 1.3 hectares and fermented with more full clusters and with a dash of Syrah (around 4%) in the field blend. By taking away the part bottled as Cru Truquilemu, this has become more ethereal. The 2018, an extraordinary vintage, has less alcohol (12.8%), more flavor and, most of all, greater depth with more layers that open up with time in the glass. These wines are as much abut texture and mouthfeel as aromas and flavors, incredibly fine-grained and titillating with lots of light and energy. This is the evolution of a wine produced in the past with slightly different names, with lots 77, 67, 57 and 47. 10,127 bottles produced. It was bottled in January 2020 and marked with lot #97.

Wine Advocate (99)

There are three Carignan/Cariñena wines from the same vineyard in Truquilemu in 2018, and the 2018 Vigno comes from a section further down along the creek where there's terrific drainage and thus low yield and concentration. It's Carignan with smidgens of País and Monastrell in the field blend, the grapes grown by a mall farmer by hand and horse with traditional methods of dry-farming, uncertified organic for 75+ years. Like all the rest, it fermented in open-top vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in used barrels over two winters. None of these wines are about the process, they are about the place and the year. In 2018, the wine finished with 13% alcohol, a pH of 3.2 and seven grams of acidity, parameters that talk about a wine with moderate ripeness and vibrant freshness, from a cooler year in a cool part of Maule. 3,336 bottles produced. It was bottled in January 2020.

Wine Spectator (95)

From green clay and pebbly silex soils, the 2018 Vouvray Le Mont Demi-Sec offers a clear, intense but elegant and sublime nose that intermixes ripe fruit and ginger aromas with spicy-flinty notes. Very well articulated and precise on the nose, it is lush and intense on the palate, with a good structure and complex finish. This is a highly promising Vouvray whose combination of 14% alcohol and unfermented sugar asks for a couple of years of cellar aging. The finish is salty, pure, tight and vibrantly fresh. A gorgeous, highly energetic wine. Tasted in May 2019.

Matthew Jukes (20)

I tasted this wine for the very first time on the 31st of January and it moved me so much that I wanted to write it up on the spot. It was clear to me that this bottle was a once in a lifetime Sauvignon Blanc experience. I was told I couldn’t review it because it was a preview sample and it was not due into the UK until later in the year. Since first tasting this wine I have been playing a game of trying to think of a finer wine made from this oft-derided and seemingly out-of-fashion-with-the-cognoscenti grape. From the hundreds of labels made by the acknowledged Sauvignon Blanc masters of the universe, I cannot think of a single wine which combines all of the epic SB attributes in one single wine. Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux, Haut Brion Blanc (ok, this has Semillon on board), Gembrook Hill, early Cloudy Bays, countless Chavignols from Cotat, Redde’s own wines, Cantine Terlano, Colterenzio, Reverdy, Spottswoode, Casa Marín, Dagueneau, Dog Point, Jackson Estate, The Berrio, Iona, Viña Leyda, Dry Creek Vineyards, Larry Cherubino’s epic 2017, The Lane Vineyard’s Gathering (again with Semillon loitering with intent), Shaw Smith, Cape Point Vineyards, Duckhorn, Greywacke, Boulay, Pellé and on and on, are all fantastic Sauvignons, but they are not as complete nor as enchanting at 2017 Barre à Mine. We can all circumnavigate the globe and pick any one of a hundred talented Sauvignon Blanc wizards’ creations and while their wines are undoubtedly delicious, impactful and worthy of admiration, I cannot remember a bottle which has the cosmic balance or the inescapable magic that this one does. I tasted it again last night and came to the conclusion that this is a wine which cannot be improved so, while I never thought that this day would come, I am overjoyed to give a Sauvignon Blanc a perfect 20/20 in my tasting notes. Barre à Mine translates as ‘Crowbar’. Never has such a blunt instrument inspired such an exquisite flavour.

Vinous (93)

Produced from a flint site that needed to be blown up to make the terroir and made from relatively young vines, this is initially a tender and supple style with a whiff of gunsmoke/flint, a taut line of precision that runs through its core, a mere hint of green herbs reminding you that Pouilly is a Sauvignon producer and even a hint of white pepper. It's a powerful style that has an attractive sense of bitterness holding it together. At just 13%, this is wonderfully balanced, aromatic and driven in this vintage. You may even feel this sense of spice that warms the palate, almost like you've had a warming Indian curry - it's not the alcohol but something else - maybe it's the lint. Unique and intriguing.

Wine Enthusiast (91)

Named after the producer's winery, this wine is a blend of fruit from different parts of the appellation. A little age has rounded out the wine, giving richness as well as a bite of acidity at the end. Although ready to drink, the wine will be even better from 2021.

Vinous (95)

Starting to take on a deep golden hue, the 1997 Moulin Touchais Coteaux du Layon is a sensuous sweet wine (92g/L of residual sugar) that offers ripe and concentrated flavors of apricot jam, cooked oranges botrytis-derived spices (60% of the fruit was affected by botrytis, a high proportion for this wine). It is intense, rich and honeyed, coating the palate with its sucrosity. There's just enough acidity here to keep things going but it does not have the vivacious refreshment of cooler years, providing a weightier, fully charged expression. The finish is lengthy and fragrant.

James Suckling (96)

This is starting to come around now even if the ripe fruit is still prevalent now with beautiful aromas of black cherries, dark plums, spices, dust and tobacco. Full body, velvety tannins and a long finish. Lovely terracotta undertones. Drink now or hold.

Decanter (98)

Founded by Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Concha y Toro in Puente Alto, Almaviva excels with its Bordeaux-inflected reds created by Michel Friou. Its 2019 cuveé – 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Carmenere, and the rest made up of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Merlot – enjoyed an extraordinary year resulting in a fragrant nose of dark fruit, lavender, eucalyptus, blackcurrant and cigar box aromas. The refined palate has a fresh core and velvety feel.

Vinous (94)

The 2013 Viñedo Chadwick came from a generally typical year in terms of climate, although March and April were cool, stretching out the Cabernet Sauvignon’s ripening period. The wine spent 22 months in 90% new French barrels. It’s garnet red in the glass. It has a nose of pyrazine, mint and red fruit over secondary aromas from the aging process which provide a well-judged frame. In the mouth, the tannins are firm with throat-tickling freshness and plenty of energy. The grippy flow is well-balanced and relaxed with a flavorful backdrop and ends with a lively, and lengthy, finish.