2020 Almaviva, Maipo Valley, Chile

This is the 25th anniversary bottling. 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Carménère, 6% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. 

Fresh and deep nose, full of blueberries, minty cassis, mussels, cigars, dark spice and roasted sesame oak, which will need a year or two to fully integrate. A medium-to full-bodied Almaviva with supple, silky tannins and a wealth of black and blue fruit that provides a lot of charm now. Voluptuous and flattering on the palate, hallmarked by its tension and taut texture. Very long.

Better from 2024

Now one of the old hands on the Place de Bordeaux and still setting the pace; full of complexity and pleasure, with an embrace of blueberry and raspberry fruits. Cardamon, turmeric spices with lemongrass and dill, giving sculpted lifted acidities that have been maintained through the heat of 2020, an impressive wine with a floral edge. The 2020 vintage marks 25 years of this property. Winemaker Michel Friou. 75% new oak.

Drink 2023 - 2035

200,000 bottles produced. It was bottled during the second half of February 2022.

2020 was exceptionally dry, with 75% less rain than usual in the period between May and September, which resulted in an earlier harvest to produce a 2020 Almaviva with 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Carmenère from Peumo), 6% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, so with no Merlot this time. The process was as careful as possible, without using bombs, doing manual and optical sorting of the grapes, pressing in small vertical presses and ageing for 20 months in French oak barrels, 73% of the new and the rest second use. The wine reached good ripeness with 14.9% alcohol. It still shows the effect of the élevage, with abundant notes of sweet spices, a creamy touch and some smoke.

I tasted it next to the 2019, and the wines have a very similar aromatic palette with a clear note of baked peppers. What was amazing in 2020 was that they harvested the Carmenere almost five weeks earlier than they normally would, and the result was not a green wine at all. As in all dry years, the wines show a little more tannic, a little in the style of the 2017—but the 2020 has more tension than the 2017, and the 2017 was more powerful and with a bigger tannic structure. The 2019 volume was higher than the 2018, and the 2020 volume is closer to 2019 than 2018.

Drink 2024 - 2036