Happy hour Chilean Wine Tasting Featuring Vina Almaviva Winery with Special Guest CEO Manuel Louzada

Lloyd: What the hell are we doing here, Harry? We gotta get out of this town!
Harry: Oh yeah, and go where? Where are we gonna go?
Lloyd: I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Aspen.
Harry: Oh, I don't know, Lloyd. The French are assholes.

The best wines today are made with either: sustainable, organic or biodynamic practices and this is not only to make better wines but to maintain better vineyard health.  Just like it is bad for us humans to take antibiotics every time we have a little sniffle or cough, the vineyards are healthier and will live longer more productive lives if they are maintained with natural principles.

On Monday, October 16th we have good friend Manuel Louzada in town from one of the iconic wineries of Chile Amaviva.  This winery is one of the first France and Chilean joint ventures brought to us by Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Concha Y toro.  I don’t work on Monday night for just anyone, Almaviva is one of the most successful joint ventures of its kind anywhere in the world. 

Join us as we welcome Manuel back to South Florida for a special Monday night edition of Happy Hour at the Wine Watch wine bar.   The fee for this tasting is $95 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com. 

Happy Hour Chilean Wine Tasting featuring Almaviva Winery
with Special Guest CEO Manuel Louzada
Monday, October 16th, 2023
6:00 PM

2009 Vina Almaviva Puente Alto Chile
2009 was a generous year marked by a normal rainfall in winter (312 mm in Puente Alto), a nice spring, a number of bunches higher than usual, a perfect ­owering and berry setting, a typical hot and dry summer with the heat of the days always moderated by the cold of the nights, and finally a great quality of fruit, fully ripe, healthy and juicy, with an exceptional smoothness of tannins.
An important work of green harvest was done to reduce the higher yields, mainly on the younger vines, as our older vines of 30 years are naturally producing very low yields (21 hl/ha).
2009 was also an earlier year, from budding to harvest, ending in a faster and earlier ripening process. Harvest started with Merlot on March 26th and finished with Carmenère on May 20th, while the Cabernet Sauvignonfrom Puente Alto were harvested from April 15th to May 15th, and Carmenére from Peumo from May 11th to May 16th.
Deep, intense, ruby red color with purple tones. The nose is pure, well focused and elegant. Complex and layered, it reveals fresh and delicate aromas of cassis, black berries and violet, associated to ‑ne notes of vanilla, cacao, licorice, and spices. e wine is filling the mouth with smooth, well refined and juicy tannins, underlining the plenitude of the ripe fruit. e texture is incredibly round and silky, and the finish is long and ­fleshy. A superb wine, precise in its character, accessible and remarkably balanced.

2019 VINA ALMAVIVA PUENTE ALTO CHILE
Price: $213.75                 Your Price: $188.10              Quantity in Stock: 2
(95 Points) The 2019 Almaviva is a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Carmenère (from Peumo), 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot and 1% Merlot, higher in Carmenere and reflecting a warmer and drier vintage when then bottled wine reached 15% alcohol. It fermented with destemmed grapes in stainless steel and matured in French oak barrels, 75% of them new, for 18 months. Here, the Carmenere adds herbal freshness and changes the aromatic profile when compared with the 2019 Epu. 2019 was a good year for Carmenere, which suffers in extremely warm years like 2017, but in moderately warm years like 2019, the variety displays that herbal character and has good density. It's full-bodied and round, with saturated tannins, tasty, spicy and long, with a dry, serious finish. It's balsamic, with notes of camphor and a silky and velvety texture.  Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

2020 Vina Almaviva Puente Alto Chile
List Price: $206.00          Your Price: $181.28
­e vintage 2020 was a magni‑cent vintage, due to the particularly dry climatic conditions. A vintage that will be remembered as one of the most challenging for the team, that with great eort, commitment and dedication, was able to achieve an exceptional result.
Winter was dramatically dry with only 64 mm of rainfall from May to September 2019, 75% less than the historical average of 256 mm.  During the same winter period, the temperatures were alternatively lower and higher than usual, resulting in a budbreak occurring a bit later than expected, mainly during the first two weeks of a cold October.
­The temperatures increased significantly in November, and stayed at higher levels than usual during all Spring and Summer. ­roughout the whole vegetative cycle, we hoped for rain and considered initially the drought as the main issue of the vintage. Paradoxically, the heats and the drought became a real blessing as they generated an early ripening process and obliged us to harvest naturally earlier and faster than usual, under the pressure of the incipient pandemic. All our grapes were quickly harvested between March 13th and April 17th, ending 3-4 weeks earlier than usual. ­e particular conditions of the year concentrated the savors in the berries, producing a wonderful vintage 2020 with lots of fruit, freshness, density and tension.
An appealing dark and vibrant ruby color. ­e nose is pure and layered, displaying a generous and elegant bouquet of blackberry, ripe cassis and wild strawberry, associated to mineral hints and delicate notes of violet, ink, vanilla and dark chocolate. On the palate, the wine shows an outstanding balance, full of life, density and structure, roundness and savors. Rened, well ripened and coated tannins grant this wine a voluptuous texture, perfectly balanced by a great acidity, as the evolution leaves an impression of plenitude, length and harmony. An elegant and well-built wine from an excellent and memorable dry vintage.

2019 Almaviva EPU Puente Alto Chile
(93 Points) The first truly international release of the second wine is going to be the 2019 Epu, which has changed image and label, looking a little more like Almaviva, and is going to be sold through the Bordeaux négoce. 2019 was a very dry vintage, and the blend is 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Carmenere, 2% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc with slightly higher alcohol than 2018 and with lower acidity, matured in used barriques for one year. In terms of freshness, the wine is quite similar to the 2018 that I tasted next to it, obviously a little younger, quite intense and fruit-driven, spicy and herbal, with a creamy texture and fine-grained tannins. It's a second wine, but they also want to do something different and Epu is perhaps a little more classical, perhaps this is more Bordeaux and Almaviva is more Chilean.  Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

2020 Almaviva EPU Puente Alto Chile
List Price: $72.00            Your Price: $63.36
(94 points)  The current release of their second wine is the 2020 Epu. It's selected from the same terroir and vineyard in Puente Alto, one of the most reputed places for Cabernet Sauvignon in Chile, but from the younger vines (five- to 20-year-old vines) and harvested a little earlier to preserve acidity and fruit. In the warm and dry 2020 vintage, the wine was produced with a blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Carmenere, 5% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc, usually higher in Cabernet and lower in Carmenere than Almaviva. It has red ripe berries, the textbook blackberries and cassis and some creamy oak. It's ripe at 14.8% alcohol and has mellow acidity, good freshness and balance, with a pH of 3.71 and 4.8 grams of acidity (tartaric). It matured for 12 months in French barriques, 10% new and 90% second use. The wine has a bright nose with a clean note of baked "morrón" peppers intermixed with red berry compote. It has a velvety plate with the luxurious texture of the modern Bordeaux, with abundant, slightly dusty tannins. It's approachable and round but should reward some time in bottle. This is a pretty serious Epu. 75,000 bottles produced. It was bottled at the end of 2021 and the first days of 2022. This is the second vintage sold through the Place de Bordeaux négociant system.  Wine Advocate

Menu
Selection of Charcuterie and Cheese
Palta reina
Pastel de Choclo
Beef Short Rib Empanadas with Mole Sauce

The fee for this tasting is $95 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.   Please let us know when you make your reservation if you have any food allergies and chef Toni will be happy to accommodate you.

A bit about Almaviva Winery:

In 1997, Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, Chairman of the Advisory Board of Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, and Eduardo Guilisasti Tagle, Chairman of Viña Concha y Toro S.A., sealed a partnership agreement with a view to create an exceptional Franco-Chilean wine called Almaviva.

Produced under the joint technical supervision of both partners, the first vintage achieved immediate international success upon its launch in 1998..
Made from a blend of classic Bordeaux varieties, in which Cabernet Sauvignon predominates, Almaviva is the result of a felicitous encounter between two cultures.       
Chile offers its soil, its climate and its vineyards, while France contributes its winemaking savoir-faire and traditions.          
The result is an exceptionally elegant and complex wine.  Its launch was a major milestone in the development of Chilean wines, both in Chile itself and in the international market.
There is still no official classification of wines in Chile. However, the launch of Almaviva has given rise to the Primer Orden category, a Spanish term that corresponds to the French concept of Grand Cru and the English estate grown wines. 
Primer Orden wines are made and bottled at the estate own winery and vineyards, by a technical team dedicated exclusively to producing one wine.
Located in the Maipo Valley, in Chile's central zone, Puente Alto was recognized over twenty years ago as offering ideal conditions for growing the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.          
It is here that 85 hectares have been reserved exclusively for Almaviva.
Located in Puente Alto, this bodega was designed by the famous Chilean architect Martín Hurtado. Built in 1998, and inaugurated in the year 2000, this winery is recognized as a perfect integration of both esthetic design and functionality. 
For its construction, native woods were brought from the south of Chile, integrating the bodega into the typical Chilean Central Valley landscape. The decoration of its interior is inspired by the native people of Chile, using throughout the bodega symbols and artifacts representative of the Mapuche culture.
Although the winter rainfall was slightly inferior to historical average, the rains were steady and well distributed throughout the winter season. Reasonably warm temperatures and a good water supply in the soil helped to ensure a homogenous bud-break in September, and a great growth in October-November.
From December to February, the maximum temperatures remained considerably elevated during the day, with a diurnal fluctuation of temperatures particularly high.          
Lower temperatures in April slowed down the ripening process to give us the latest harvest date ever, with picking lasting from April 24 to May 24. Dry conditions and slow ripening contributed to a great accumulation of phenolic compounds, a good balance and an optimal ripeness of the grapes.