Caliterra

Winemaker Comment

This season was unusually cool considering the entire previous decade at the Caliterra vineyard. Lower temperatures and less sunny days caused the harvest to occur 10 to 15 days later than usual. Even though this phenomenon represented an increase in the threat of precipitations, the rains arrived after we had finalized the crushing phase.
In terms of quality for our Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva, this shall be an excellent year since the fruit was able to ripen in practically optimum conditions, under a serene sun and fresh breezes that kept a slow yet constant concentration of aromas and flavors that are bountiful in the glass.

Vintage Notes

We in Colchagua, and in fact most of Chile, experienced exceptional warm, sunny, and rain-free weather throughout the entire season, including harvest. April was particularly sunny with high temperatures. Cabernet Sauvignon likes sun, but not extremes, so despite our greatest efforts in the vineyard, some grapes suffered the effects of excess sun and presented varying degrees of dehydration and reduced pigmentation, which made it necessary to employ a stricter selection process in the vineyard and cellar than in other years. Polygonal Work in the vineyard was crucial throughout the season and consisted of making a rational separation by heterogeneity within the different plots to reflect the variances generated by the diversity present in the soils. We use the latest technology and multispectral images to determine the state of maturity on a plant by plant basis and then harvest uniform sectors of fruit that are taken to the cellar and begin their own route to the bottle rather than being mixed into a mass of grapes of varying degrees of ripeness. This requires a very close degree of separation of sub-lots, such as occurs naturally the variations of the soil beneath the plants.

Fermentation and Aging

As has become habitual each season, once again working the vineyard in a polygon manner was crucial during this season. This consists of rationally separating the heterogeneity within the different blocks; differences that were generated by the diversity found in the soils. Using state of the art technology with multispectral images, we were able to differentiate the level of ripeness from plant to plant in order to be able to separately take uniform fruit polygons to the storage facility. This marks the beginning of an individual path towards the bottle that is not accompanied by a mass of grapes with different degrees of ripeness. This implicates a certain degree of separation of the sub-batches that rigorously adheres to how the variation of soils underneath the plants naturally occurs.
During this harvest in particular, we have had to ever-so-carefully manage the fruit since due to the fact that this season had a delay in ripening, the precise selection of ripeness for each batch allowed us to obtain wines with superb fruit expression along with proper roundness in the mouth and an excellent balance of freshness.
Fermentation was performed in stainless steel tanks at initial temperatures of 30° Celsius that were reduced afterwards to 26º Celsius so as to avoid over extraction of the skins. The wine was aged in oak barrels for 10 months during which time the malolactic fermentation took place.