Casas del Bosque Reserva Pinot Noir 2015
This wine displays lovely fruit purity with just the right amount of oak that adds roundness and texture without pinching down on the fruit in the nose and mouth. Beautiful black cherry fruit is touched up with a light earth tone and light stemminess adding complexity to the fruit aromatically. Fruit forward in the palate, this still possesses good structure to the dark red berry fruit. Medium to medium fuller bodied, this has sleek tannins that play off perfectly against the wine’s fruit intensity and a lovely, almost silky texture that gives this an engaging suppleness in the palate. A nice acid backbone gives freshness and length that brings this to a lovely finish. This is a very nice drop that represents serious Pinot value.
92 pts James Suckling
A flavorful red with dried strawberry and lemon. Medium to full body, lovely tannin tension with plenty of fruit. Real pinot. Drink now.
87 pts Wine Spectator
Pomegranate and red currant flavors dominate this firm, savory red. Features leafy notes midpalate, with a spicy finish. Drink now through 2020. 10,000 cases made. –KM
On arrival at the winery, all grapes were de-stemmed and crushed to open-top tanks. It was warm and inoculated with selected yeasts (Assmanhaussen and RC212) and fermented during 10 days with temperatures peaking at 32ºC/90ºF. During fermentation, the vats were hand-plunged twice daily in order to extract the ideal amount of tannin and color. Following the completion of fermentation, the wine was drained off (after a total maceration time of 9 days) and put to the barrel. The wine was aged for a total of 6 months in second use French oak barrels before being bottled with minimal filtration. Less than 10 years ago we in the wine trade wondered if we would ever find high quality, price sensitive Pinot Noir. At that time it just wasn’t out there. Definitely not from France, Oregon or California, and in reality this is still the case. New Zealand was still a few years out from its big breakout with this most fickle of grapes, and Chile was still waiting in the wings. Now things have changed immeasurably and Chile seems to have the inside track on the value-oriented Pinot Noir category, something that no other country, so far at least, for the time being, seems capable of doing in the near term future.