Chile Walks the Wild Side, Plus Spain’s New Vintages: Weekly Tasting Report (May 25-31)

We tasted 571 wines over the past week from 11 countries, with the last batch of Chilean samples taking our palates to the long, narrow strip of land to the west of the southern Andes and its booming diversity of offerings, while we continued to discover what Spain has to offer in its new vintages.

The highlights from Chile were mainly from two established producers – Montes Wines and Viña Morande. Interestingly, they share something in common. Their founders, Aurelio Montes Sr. and Pablo Morande, respectively, are both considered pioneers of the Chilean wine scene – Montes Sr. because of his involvement in the premiumization of Chilean wines, and Morande because he put Casablanca on the wine map in the 1980s, showing the world that outstanding wines could come out Chile’s coastal region. More important, both founders have never ceased exploring the potential for new varieties in new landscapes, with great success.

Drinkability is the word for some of the most impressive wines from Viña Morande, and many of them come from La Aventura series – off-the-beaten-path offerings by younger winemakers made from pais, cinsault, grenache, marsanne, roussanne, viognier, malbec, petite sirah and petit verdot.

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Apart from Morande's VIGNO, which is an outstanding example of dry-farmed, old-vine carignan that has enjoyed some commercial success, we also liked the Morandé Valle de Cachapoal El Gran Petit 2020, which is a brooding blend of petite sirah and petit verdot, rendering deep flavors with juicy and fleshy dark fruit rounded by tight yet creamy tannins.

The Viña Morandé Grenache Syrah Marsanne Carignan Roussanne Valle de Maule Mediterráneo 2019 is a unique co-fermentation of red and white varieties that showcases Chile's Mediterranean freshness with its racy and incredibly succulent berry fruit. With very low pH and high acidity, it can be a little demanding for some palates but should please any “acid freaks.”

The chief winemaker of Morande, Ricardo Baettig, told us that making these unique wines has become more of a trend, and that such offerings are better received now. “We started early, and were ahead of the time,” Baettig said of the difficulty in the early days of finding a market for La Aventura range. Today, the wines are made in a separate winery and aged in egg-shaped concrete tanks.

In Colchagua, Montes Wines continues to explore new terroirs and varieties. The malbec from the Alpha range and the syrah and CGM (carignan, grenache, and mourvedre) from the Outer Limits lineup are powerful demonstrations of how well these varieties fare in Colchagua. But Montes Sr. has a clear mind and vision, and he doesn’t mince words when describing these wines as being in "interesting" category of his bottlings, as opposed to the more "important" ones that bring in the revenue.

His three iconic wines belong in the latter category, including the Purple Angel 2019, which appears at the top of our ratings this week. We love the layers and complexity of this carmenere/petit verdot blend, from its signature Cuban cigar character to a nose full of ripe and voluptuous dark currants, blackberries and subtle, exotic spices. Meanwhile, the Folly 2019 is a deep, hedonistic and full-bodied syrah from Apalta, while the Montes Valle de Colchagua Alpha M 2019 seeks more finesse from Colchagua's cabernet sauvignon. They continue to deliver the quality that matches their stature and impress us with their fine-tuned opulence.

The Alpha M 2019 came from about 70 percent new barrels and 18 months of aging, so was  more restrained than past vintages, in which the percentage of new oak was higher, with about 22 months in barrel. With Montes Sr.’s 50th vintage just around the corner, he told us that the golden rule he abides by now is to not spoil what the harvests give him.

We also discovered many outstanding bottles from Spain over the past week, with a few making it to our 95-point level of excellence, including a tangy, linear, and drinkable mencia blend from Envinate’s Ribeira Sacra vineyards, and a pure, textured old-vine godello made by Bodegas Avancia.

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There was a pleasant discovery of some artisanal orange wines made by Vides Singulares. A few mineral but creamy Rias Baixas reassured us of the albariño's quality. A peppery, sleek graciano by Rioja Vega and a rich and waxy but fresh and textured garnacha blanca fermented in barrels are also among the top findings from Spain this week.

There are lots of other wines below from Italy, especially Friuli, as well as France, Australia and even Canada. Oregon also gave us some very good bottles, but have a look at all the tasting notes and decide for yourself which are the best for your wine list.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.