Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta 2020 (750ML)

99 JS / 97 DE / 97 DB / 96 VM / 96 JA / 95 WA

#13 James Suckling's Top 100 Wines of Chile 2023
#42 James Suckling's Top 100 Wines of 2023

A really refined, expressive and layered Clos Apalta with fine olives, incense, cigar box, cocoa powder, Spanish chocolate, pencil shavings, graphite and fine spices. Juicy, bright and full-bodied palate with a fine saline, savory twist. Very long and juicy. 64% carmenere, 19% cabernet sauvignon, 15% merlot and 2% petit verdot. Real finesse from 2020. Drink from 2024. - James Suckling

A great effort in the hot and dry 2020, COVID-19 vintage with the earliest harvest ever. The grand vin shows power, richness and tons of fruit but retains a sense of charisma and direction that is so compelling. Bright, forward, sleek and silky, tannins enrobe the palate creating a cushion for the ripe blackcurrants and blueberries, bright acidity and underlying spice to meld together. A large percentage of Carmenere at 64% gives the fragrance and backbone while 19% Cabernet Sauvignon adds texture and depth, 13% Merlot bringing freshness and acidity and 2% Petit Verdot adding spice, colour and richness. Only just beginning to really express itself with liquorice, eucalyptus, figs, plums and a salty-wet stone minerality that comes in on the finish. Despite the intensity, this is layered and well sculpted with tons of pleasure to be had with a few more years ageing. Ageing 27 months in 225L French oak barrels, 85% new, 15% two years old. 3.7pH. Winemaker and viticulturist Andrea Leon kept more leaf coverage, a thicker and higher trellis and natural cover crops during the vintage to moderate the high temperatures. Bottles for this, and the second wine, are now made in Chile as of this vintage and have reduced in weight by 10% in a bid to increase sustainability. Clos Apalta now also featuring its name embossed in the glass at the bottom of the bottle. - Georgina Hindle, Decanter

Gosh, this is lovely. There are plenty of very floral wines amongst this September’s releases on la place, but this is perhaps the most intensely floral aromatically of them all. Lily and iris, violet and a touch of rosemary and lavender, saffron and pollen grains too, beeswax, and copious black berry and stone fruit. There’s a little wood smoke too and a touch of Szechuan pepper. On the palate this is lithe and limpid, energetic and dynamic and rather more saline in its minerality than one expects from the nose, with plenty of salty liquorice. The tannins are of gossamer, though they build in the mouth, slowly shaping and sculpting the highly contoured, richly-detailed mid-palate. This is really excellent. - Colin Hay, The Drink Business

The 2020 Blend Clos Apalta is 64% Carménère, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot from Apalta, Colchagua. It was aged for 27 months in 85% new barrels. Rich purple in hue. The clearly defined, ripe, complex nose has a leafy character underlined by fruit such as prune and blueberry jam along with hints of pepper, tobacco and rosemary, all packaged in a cedar cigar box. Creamy and broad in the mouth with good volume. The firm flow is channeled by appreciable structure in which polished tannins set the tone for an expansive, indulgent profile. A genuine Michel Rolland interpretation of a year with a rapid ripening season. - Joaquin Hidalgo, Vinous Media

Enticing layers of tobacco, cocoa bean, redcurrant, blackberry and pomegranate. There are good acidities also to support the spicy core of toasted oak, cloves, liqourice, cigar box, Provence herbs, and soft, supple tannins. Small berries in this hot vintage (around two weeks ahead of average throughout the growing season) mean clear concentration and a lot of body, and the bell pepper and eucalyptus notes of this Carmanère-dominant wine are extremely welcome. Harvest finished on March 6, the earliest on record. Ageing in a mix of new and second-use barrels, with a long light toasting (this ageing changed as of the 2017 vintage, bringing down levels of new oak to 85%), 3.71ph, unfiltered and unfined. There has been a change to the bottles also, lowering their weight and ensuring they are produced in Chile itself. Old vines dating back to 1907. - Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux

The grand vin 2020 Clos Apalta was produced with a blend of 64% Carmenere, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot from a ripe and warm year. It's ripe, concentrated, dense and powerful, reflecting the house style and the conditions of the year, with more influence from the élevage than in the second wine, Le Petit Clos. It fermented with indigenous yeasts for five to six weeks, with manual punch-down of the cap in 7,500-liter French oak vats, followed by malolactic in new French oak barrels. The élevage was 27 months in 85% new barrels and 15% second use barrels. It has a creamy, smoky and spicy personality, with notes of sweet spices, such as cinnamon and vanilla and ripe blackberries, and it is quite forward, ripe and showy, with generous oak and 15% alcohol. It's lush with abundant, fine-grained tannins and a persistent finish. Give it a little more time in bottle, and enjoy with powerful food. 116,700 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2022. - Luis Gutierrez, Wine Advocate