Caliterra

Winemaker Comment

Our Caliterra Tributo Cabernet Sauvignon has always been distinguished for its excellent varietal typicity. This year the wine keeps running in the same track, but with an additional elegance due to the fallen leaves and humid soil aromas that intermingle with walnut and almond notes. On the palate, the wine surprises with a cedar wood and delicate cherry flavour, luscious and encouraging sensations that blend with an elegant structure and long lasting taste.

Vintage Note

Harvest 2007 will be remembered through out the country as one of the best. For Caliterra, it has been the best ever.

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.

It was a great year for Cabernet Sauvignon: we obtained wines with intense colour and aromas, very complex, mature and not excessively alcoholic.

Fermentation and Aging

In this vintage 2007 we started using the Polygonal Harvest System, this process allows us to obtain first class grapes. With the use of new technologies systems and satellite infrared photos, we are able to find the level of maturity from each vine and group them in specific polygons. With this information, harvest is done following the specific polygons allowing us to harvest homogenous fruit at optimal ripeness.

As a collateral effect of this detailed differentiation at the vineyard, there has been a decrease of the alcoholic level in the wines because by crafting only optimal ripe fruit in the stainless steel tanks, sugar levels have decreased and consequently alcohol levels have diminished.

Fermentation began at 28ºC / 82.4ºF, and the temperature was later lowered to prevent over-extraction of skin elements. After that, the wine went through 25 days of maceration to enhance complexity and achieve a nice, rich colour before being aged for 14 months in 62% American and 38% French oak barrels, during which time it completed malolactic fermentation.