Top Ten World Wine Review
One of the few great Aussie Shirazes
Carnival of Love is one of the few great Aussie Shirazes priced less than $100. Mollydooker owners Sarah and Sparky Marquis buy the grapes from the Gateway Vineyard, a property planted in 2000. They aim for 4 tons per acre from the site, but severe drought in 2007 reduced [...]
The Seghesio family has been making wine for a century in northern Sonoma County and farms more than 400 acres of Zinfandel in Alexander and Dry Creek valleys. They make a range of vineyard-designated Zinfandels, such as Home Ranch and Cortina, and a bottling from the oldest vines. But for this Sonoma County 2007, winemaker [...]
One of the largest estates in the Chteauneuf-du-Pape appellation, this property is owned and run by the Perrin family. In 2005, they produced their best regular cuve since 1989 (Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year in 1991). The Beaucastel vineyard produces dense and explosive wines from a collage of 13 different grapes, most notably Grenache [...]
Owner Alfred Tesseron has masterminded one of the most remarkable turnarounds on Bordeaux’s Left Bank in the past decade, elevating the quality of Pontet-Canet’s wines beyond that of fifth-growth. While Pauillacs such as Chteau Mouton-Rothschild and Chteau Latour draw much higher prices, Pontet-Canet too crafts powerful wines, built for aging, that express its vineyards planted [...]
This big, juicy, chewy wine is one of Piedmont’s most reliable and widely available quality blended Barolos. Pio Boffa represents the fourth generation to run this estate, located in the heart of Barolo’s capital of Alba. He sources Nebbiolo grapes from the winery’s own vineyards in the Serralunga d’Alba commune and supplements them with grapes [...]
Brothers Daniel and Frdric Brunier represent the third generation of Bruniers to run this famed estate. With a large (173 acre) contiguous vineyard, a rarity in the appellation, the Bruniers rely heavily on Grenache, Mourvdre and Syrah to produce their top red cuve. Tight and almost gravelly in feel when young, the wine has a [...]
Bordeaux’s sweet wines shared the limelight in the region’s legendary 2005 vintage. Many chteaus, like Guiraud, long under the direction of Xavier Planty, produced their best wine ever. During the harvest, grape pickers passed painstakingly through the estate’s 210 acres of 35-year-old Smillon and Sauvignon Blanc vineyards, selecting only grapes affected by botrytis. By harvest’s [...]
This red from Portugal’s Douro River Valley is at the crest of the new wave of high-quality table wines issuing from the historic heartland of Port. Up to 30 different grape varieties from old-vine vineyards compose this refined blend. Some of the grapes are foot-trodden in lagares during initial fermentation, and the wine is then [...]
Estate manager John Kolasa claims that nature did the lion’s share of the work in 2005, leaving him and his team with a relatively simple job. Yet vast investment at the estate since the mid-1990s by the owners, who also control Chanel, enabled Rauzan to reap the benefits of a great growing season. The estate’s [...]
Since its outstanding debut 1997 vintage, Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta bottling has helped to establish Chile as a premier red-wine region. Owner Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle and her team created a blend of Chile’s distinctive Carmenre variety, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the estate’s oldest vines in Colchagua’s Apalta sub-valley, then kept refining: fermenting in smaller [...]
Since its outstanding debut 1997 vintage, Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta bottling has helped to establish Chile as a premier red-wine region. Owner Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle and her team created a blend of Chile’s distinctive Carmenre variety, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the estate’s oldest vines in Colchagua’s Apalta sub-valley, then kept refining: fermenting in smaller lots, hand-destemming berries and constructing a gravity-flow winery. All this came to fruition in the long, warm, dry 2005 vintage, easily Chile’s modern best. Marnier and new winemaker Jacques Begarie blended in 4 percent Petit Verdot for the first time, adding aroma and color. Rich and velvety, the 2005 Clos Apalta should reward cellaring. The wine’s price has remained relatively modest through the years. Like a wine cathedral the Clos Apalta winery rises out of the Colchagua in the Rapel Valley perched on a hill and looking from a distance like orange being offered to the gods. This is no coincidence, Casa Apalta is the flagship wine of Casa Lapostolle, which is owned by the makers of the orange and brandy flavored Grand Marnier.
The incredible gravity fed winery is only part of the reason to visit this stunning panorama. Adjacent to winery itself is the equally impressive Lapostolle Residence. Four “casitas,” individual houses, await those who value comfort and pampering above anything as mundane as budget.
For $650 with dinner, or $550 without you can experience one of the finest and most comfortable overnight stays anywhere in the world. The meals are served at a central guest house that is replete with an infinity pool looking out into the vineyards.
The food was as resplendent as the view and the service and staff were uncommonly accommodating. They are ready and willing to fulfill any wish you may have to make your stay even more perfect. From horseback riding to the unforgettable Grand Pisco Sours while resting in the shade your needs are anticipated with a smile.
Once you can drag yourself out of the lap of luxury, stroll the few meters from the guest house to the winery for a tour unlike any you have ever expperienced. Designed to delight the eye as well as perform with simple ease, the Apalta winery is a descending spiral of beauty.
The grapes are given the royal treatment from the moment they arrive. Individual berry selection, usually reserved for the finest dessert wines is the initial step. This removes the ubiquitous stemmer crusher that blind tasting has shown to reduce the quality of their top tier wine.
The grapes are loaded into small hoppers that are wheeled to the top of the vats to discharge their load into the oak fermenters. Cooling coils ensure the control on the inside of the vat, while a bevy of misters and active cooling keeps the room at the ideal conditions.
The tanks drain their free run juice through a pipe system built into the floor, using the most gentle of gravity processes in order to prevent any harm that might come from pumping. The must is placed in a rare vertical press and the press wine is sent off for other endeavors, leaving only the finest ingredients for the Apalta bottling.
Down the spiral stair case to the first year barrel room reveals a sight that is rarely seen outside the first growth houses of Bordeaux. Perfect lines of new oak form a picture that speaks of the care and love that goes into producing the wine.
Another flight down yields the second year barrel room and a beautiful glass tasting table for those lucky enough to take the tour. Below the glass top rests the wine library that fewer still are given access to. Here every vintage of Apalta is stored waiting to be tasted at a much later date.
All of this is built into the solid granite that makes up the surrounding hills, and as if to accentuate that fact a wall of rough hewn granite graces the wine library and the stairwell of the winery. This look into the geology of the region is almost as telling as the obvious effort that went into building the imposing structure. Only a great deal of expense and love could have imagined and produced such a unique facility.
The Apalta Wine, which was recently award with the appellation of “The Best Wine in the World” by a leading publication is only one of many wines that are produced by Casa Lapostolle. In an epic tasting of 16 wines I was able to taste the past present and future of the winery. I was impressed not only by the wines, and the ever capable winemaker Andrea Iriarte but by her deep desire to continue to excel and acknowledgment that there is room for improvement. A typically Chilean attitude that the rest of the wine world would do well to adopt.
Visit Chile, visit the Colchagua where some of the finest wines hail, but above all if you can at all swing it, visit the astounding Apalta Winery and Residence. It is an event that you will cherish forever.