| Country: | Chile |
| Region: | Colchagua Valley |
| Winery: | Siegel |
| Grape Type: | Chardonnay |
| Vintage: | 2018 |
| Bottle Size: | 750 ml |
Siegel San Elias Chardonnay is made from 100 percent Chardonnay.
This Chardonnay has a light yellow color with green highlights. The nose shows fresh and intense tropical fruit aromas of pineapple, citrus, herbs and a touch of honey. On the palate it is lush, smooth and well-balanced with good acidity and lovely tropical fruit flavors.
Siegel San Elias Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.
Fresh and delicate cassis tones, a great structure. Draw the cork half an hour before serving and serve at room temperature.
Smooth and fruity on the palate, the wine goes well with pasta, salads.
Siegel San Elias Carmenere is made from 100 percent Carmenere.
The nose shows beautiful red and dark fruit aromas, earthy notes and violets with balanced acidity. Supple and round in the mouth, juicy tannins, good concentration.
Pairs well with pasta dishes, Mediterranean cuisine and grilled vegetables.
Siegel San Elias Merlot is 100 percent Merlot
Soft, rich and concentrated with juicy plum and blackberry fruits, soft tannins and a velvety texture.
Try with hearty stews, pasta and roast red meats.
Siegel Hand-picked Selection Chardonnay is made from 100 percent Chardonnay.
The handpicked selection Reserva wines are born out of a strong desire to offer the very best expressions of terroir from El Crucero vineyard, located at 360 meters above sea level. These carefully handpicked grapes deliver superb varietal characteristics and exceptionally well-balanced fruit concentration. The manual harvest behind the handpicked Reserva Wines, a stage prior to a second triage, highlights Siegel's commitment to delivering uniquely hancrafted wines from Chile.
This handpicked Chardonnay shows a pale yellow color. On the nose, it presents notes of tropical fruits like mango. On the palate, it is well-balanced, with a pleasant acidity and a persistent finish.
Pairs best with white meats and fish, especially salmon.
Sojourn Chardonnay Sangiacomo Vineyard is made from 100 percent Chardonnay.
The core of Sojourn Sangiacomo Vineyard Chardonnay is from the same vineyard source as the highly-acclaimed Sojourn Sangiacomo Vineyard Pinot noir wines. This wine features a combination of Clone 95 Chardonnay from Sangiacomo Roberts Road Vineyard and Old Wente Clone from Sangiacomo Vella Ranch. The Roberts Road block, planted in 1998, provides minerality and vibrancy. The Old Wente Clone selection is known to produce distinctively small clusters, low yields, and results in elegant, complex wines that round out this blend. These ranches are perfectly suited for growing Chardonnay, with cool climates and well-draining soils.
Sojour Chardonnay is fresh and lively, fruit-forward with bright acidity, stone fruit, citrus and apple flavors that leave your mouth watering.
This yellow colored wine has intense pineapple aromas, very fresh, with tropical flavors overtones.
The Vina Siegel Crucero Estate
Alberto Siegel was born in Santiago in 1946, the third generation in Chile of an Austrian family. His grandfather was an Austrian architect that built some very important and traditional buildings in downtown Santiago, at the beginning of the 20th century, including the Chilean Federal Reserve.
His father, Don Germán, was a viticulturist that spent most of his career in charge of Viña San Pedro’s vineyards near the town of Molina, 140 miles south of Santiago. There Alberto grew up, literally in the middle of the vines. It was not a surprise when he decided to study Agronomy and specialize in winemaking at the Universidad Católica in Santiago.
After finishing high school, he spent a year working in wineries in Germany, and upon his return in 1971, he joined the German company Bayer. His job was to sell fertilizers to farm owners in the Colchagua area, 100 miles south of Santiago. Through this job he got to know almost every land owner, most of which were grape growers and wine producers.
A few years later and as a natural consequence, he started to act as a wine and grape broker, selling the production of small owners to the big Chilean wineries. He established Sociedad La Laguna, and he soon became the most important Chilean broker in this field, a position that he holds today by far. There is hardly any Chilean person or company involved in the wine business that has not dealt with Alberto Siegel at least once.
In parallel, and together with his father, Alberto founded Viña Siegel in 1980. They started planting vineyards in Colchagua and building the Winery in Santa Cruz. When Don Germán died in 1998, Alberto became the owner, together with his family. In the beginning, Viña Siegel only sold bulk wines to the biggest Chilean wineries, like Concha y Toro, San Pedro and Santa Rita. In 1997, Alberto decided to enter the bottled wines business and made the necessary investments to go ahead with this project.
Today, the winery has a capacity of over 3 million gallons and the company owns over 1,850 acres of vineyards in Colchagua. Their wine cellar has state of the art technology, such as vertical pneumatic presses, vacuum filters, and stainless steel tanks with total temperature control, for both cooling and heating. Viña Siegel Winery is still a family operation, with Alberto Siegel as chairman and chief winemaker. The winery has two consultants in enological matters.
The Vina Siegel Crucero Vineyard
The varieties of grapes grown are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carménère, Syrah, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, with other new varieties being added as markets demand. Viña Siegel is currently working with terroir consultant Pedro Parra to design a new site in Los Lingues, which will be planted with several new varietals, including Carignan, Grenache, and Mourvedre. The winery produces a range of varietal wines, along with reserve wines that highlight the quality of the grapevines born in this valley. The Colchagua Valley is truly a synthesis of the country’s way of life and wine has been produced here since time out of mind. This area, which has deservedly been raised to the category of estate bottling in wine making, has maintained its prestige due to the great quality of its wines. One of its noted symbols is its high quality Cabernet Sauvignons, and its red wines in general. Its variety of soils and climatic variations, some warmer, some cooler, have given the region innumerable attributes for grapevine cultivation.
Force Majeure Cabernet Sauvignon Red Mountain is made from 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.
The estate Cabernet Sauvignon is grown primarily along the southwest ridge of the vineyard. The vines produce small berries with bountiful flavor, concentration and intensity, but also a good degree of finesse, excellent structure and layers of complexity that will continue to develop during extended bottle aging for those who want to cellar and age their wines. The wine is powerful, elegant, full-bodied.
Bottled unfined and unfiltered.100% free run
Pumpovers and punch-downs, up to 45 day macerations
Native yeast, 5 day cold soaks
22 months in 75% new French oak barrels
Fermented in concrete and stainless closed top tanks.
Review:
Another gem is the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Red Mountain Estate, a deep, concentrated, powerful Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon that I suspect will be up there with the legendary wines from this terroir. Beautiful cassis, graphite, lead pencil shavings, and damp earth notes give way to a full-bodied effort that has a liqueur of rocks-like minerality, flawless balance, building yet polished tannins, and a great finish. Hide bottles for 4-5 years, and it will evolve for 25-30 years if properly stored. Best After 2026.
-Jeb Dunnuck 98+ Points