Caliterra Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2007
Colchagua Valley, Chile
94% Cabernet Sauvignon
6% Carmenere
Our Caliterra Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon displays an appealing, young, deep and lively colour. A wide range of aromas dance together. I wouldn´t say a parade because the aromas do not march in single line, they intermingle with each other. Sweet aromas of fresh and dried peaches dominate this wine together with tobacco and coffee notes. On the palate, the wine is fresh and delicious. A joyful alternative among the many exponents of this variety, well structured and with legs for up to a decade.
Winemaker Notes
This Harvest 2007 will be remembered as a good one across the country. For Caliterra, I think it has been the best in history. It was a great year for Cabernet Sauvignon: we obtained wines with intense colour and aromas, very complex, mature and not excessively alcoholic.
As the weather reports show, this season allowed us to manipulate and wait for ripeness as much as we wanted. We did not have rain showers as an obstacle to determine the precise moment to harvest. This year we presented a new approach for our vineyard, which consists of equally working the heterogeneity of the different sectors. With the help of high end technology, we were able to distinguish each individual plant from the other according to the level of detail desired to get homogeneous fruit.
Fermentation and Aging
The fruit was transported separately to the winery to begin its own way to the bottle and not like a mass of grapes of different degrees of ripeness. This implies a separation in sub-lots very similar to how variations occur naturally in soil under plants. At the end, if we have a look at the “map of this harvest”, we can see that it looks more like a “dropping” painting than a sequence of operatively efficient harvest. The fruit was sent to stainless steel tanks for fermentation at a temperature of 28°-30°C.
Malolactic fermentation and ageing took place during 10 months in French and American oak barrels, 20% new, giving the wine a well-integrated oak character.
3 Stars, Decanter
89, Wine Enthusiast & Best Buy List
