The grapes for this wine come from the stony soils you find on at the foot of the Andes Mountains, in the southern part of the Maipo Valley. The place is perfect for Cabernet Sauvignon as its poor soils provide good drainage towards the Maipo river, and the sun exposure ensures a perfect maturation process. The vines were cropped at yields of 7 tons per hectare, or 2.8 US tons per acre. On arrival at the winery, the grapes were first subjected to a whole cluster selection. Destemming and an individual berry selection followed, before being gravity fed to small open-top tanks. The must was inoculated with selected yeasts and fermented during 24 days with temperatures peaking at 32ºC/90ºF. Following the completion of the fermentation the wine was pressed off its skins and put to a mixture of new (60%)
and second use (40%) French oak barrels, where it was then aged for 22 months. During this time it was racked three times, the last one shortly before bottling. The wine was bottled on July 18th, 2019, and total production reached 8.100 bottles of 750ml. After a winter with very few rains and a very warm growing season, the grapes were handpicked on March 22nd, 2017. The hot and dry summer ensured a fast maturation that brought the harvest forward by about 2 weeks on average in the valley. For Cab, the overall size of the berries was smaller than usual, resulting in lower yields of higher quality fruit.

While Casas del Bosque may resonate for the cool climate varieties they grow in coastal Casablanca, the truth is they make some amazing Cab. Gran Bosque represents the winery’s ultimate interpretation of the variety, which sticks to a simple recipe: great grapes make great wines. The fruit is sourced from some of the best sites in Maipo Valley, and goes through a second selection process back at the winery. After that, it goes through a very traditional vinification process, where the winemaker tries to keep the clarification and filtration to the bare minimum in order to give the wine body, structure, character and opulence. 2017 was actually one of the best years in terms of fruit concentration in Gran Bosque´s run. Perhaps that’s the reason why Casas del Bosque chose to update the wine´s image and labels with this outstanding vintage.