2018 Don Melcher Cabernet

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Don Melchor is a combination of a proven style – the blend also includes 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot – and a particularly good harvest in the Puente Alto region in Maipo. Made by Enrique Tirado and aged for 15 months in French barrels, it is garnet red in the glass, with a very complex expression that unfolds in layers, beginning with black currant and sour cherry notes, followed by mint, cedar and pepper and a faint whiff of red pepper. Juicy in the mouth with fine-grained tannins and a concentration that centers the wine, channeling and stretching out the fruity backdrop, this is an unusually harmonious and delicious Bordeaux blend.

Piercingly pure nose, all graphite and black fruits with cherry and tobacco notes. Velvety and already integrated tannins support the wine and its rich mouthfeel with layers of cassis, tobacco and bay leaf – plenty of vibrancy and a good intensity of dark fruits with a saline note and excellent texture too. Possibly the finest Don Melchor I have tasted. (See also this 2019 Don Melchor vertical .) (AC)

Winemaker Enrique Tirado, who lives and breathes Don Melchor, is very enthusiastic about this vintage, a stellar one for Chile. Deep crimson although I can see the bottom of the glass! Freshness with ripe-but-not-sweet fruit and some hint of stoniness on the quite strongly aromatic nose. Then it is sweeter on the palate than it had seemed on the nose. Intense cassis, unsweetened chocolate, and then a fresh finish with a nice, dry mineral finish. Really quite appetising. Beautifully polished tannins which, amazingly, make the wine delicious to drink already. The undertow and clean peacock's tail finish is impressive. Despite its current approachability, on the basis of this vertical tasting I forecast a pretty impressively long life. (JR)