Don Melchor, Cabernet Sauvignon 2015, Puente Alto Vineyard, Puente Alto, Chile

Tasting Note: A plush, silky cabernet sauvignon that is smooth in all the right places with a toned, complex mid-palate that will seduce your attention.

Deep-intensity purple in color, this wine has a pronounced, aromatic nose of blackberry puree, bramble, black currant, black plum, boysenberry and violet with hints of vanilla baking spice.

On the palate the dry, full-bodied, smooth-textured cabernet sauvignon delivers a cacophony of black-fruit flavors suggested on the nose supported by ripe, fine-grained medium-plus tannin that completes with a medium-plus finish.

The fruit in the wine is ripe, subtle and persistent.

A touch of 7% cabernet franc in the blend adds to the complexity of the blend.

A cabernet lover’s cabernet.

Bottle Note: Don Melchor comes from a unique 313-acre vineyard planted on the rocky soils of one of the Mapio River’s oldest terraces at the foot of the Andes Mountains, one of the world’s most celebrated terroirs for cabernet sauvignon. In 1984, Eduardo Guilisati envisioned a wine that would faithfully express its place of origin and invited renowned enological consultant Jacques Boissenot of Bordeaux to participate in the Don Melchor project. Today winemaker Enrique Tirado is in charge of the wine, and the wine Boissenot family continues to be involved in the final blending of every vintage. The 2015 Don Melchor is one of the best vintages to date. There was a synergy seldom seen among the soil, climate and the vineyard. The perfect alignment of right temperatures and rainfall with the precise amounts of timing produced well-balanced vines and a particular uniform ripeness in the grapes. Each parcel of the vineyard strongly expressed the strength and personality of the aromas and flavors of Puente Alto’s remarkable terroir and delivered complexity and even greater expression to the final wines. The 2015 vintage is 92% cabernet sauvignon, 7% cabernet franc, and for the first time in its history, also included 1% petit verdot. -Enrique Tirado, Winemaker

This wine was submitted for review.