David Williams joins winemaker Michel Friou for a tasting of nine vintages of Almaviva.
In the latter part of the 20th century, the arrival of a high-profile fine-wine joint venture between a local winery and a star outsider became something of a rite of passage in many New World regions. The benefits of these partnerships seemed straightforward enough for both sides at the time: The local producer got to import the glamour, cachet, and expertise of an established Old World (or Napa) name in a single, attention-grabbing package, while the incomers got a VIP entrée to a booming region, spreading the risk that came with developing a new project in a land they knew little about, and getting a fast track to local knowledge, logistics, vineyards, and contacts in the process.
For all the talent and experience of the companies and individuals involved, the success of these marriages of convenience was by no means assured. Personality and culture clashes put paid to more than a few; all too often the JV swiftly became merely a V, with one partner buying out the other after a handful of vintages of increasingly tetchy cohabitation. Even when all was well behind the scenes, many struggled to get the public tone right, with a certain arrogance or unearned entitlement spilling over into what were generally ambitious prices from the first releases—
prices that alienated potential consumers and antagonized more established local producers in one overconfident step.
Reading some of the US and British press reaction in its early days, it’s not clear that the subject of this article, Almaviva—a collaboration between Bordeaux’s Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Chile’s Concha y Toro that was one of two high-profile turn-of-the-century Chilean JVs along with the Mondavi-Chadwick (Errázuriz) Seña—did get everything right from the beginning. “These wines have two things in common,” wrote Tim Atkin MW in The Observer in 2000, summing up a popular feeling at the time not only about Almaviva and Seña, but also the Mondavi-Frescobaldi Tuscan tie-up Luce: “they’re red, and they’re laughably over-priced.”
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A quarter-century on, however, and the high (three-figure) bottle prices Almaviva commands each vintage are no longer shocking in a Chilean context; indeed, according to wine-searcher.com, Almaviva is no longer even in the top-three most expensive Chilean wines. (It comes fourth behind, in order, Viñedo Chadwick, Montes Taita Marchique Vineyard Red, and Viña von Siebenthal Tatay de Cristobal Carmenère.) But its reputation as one of Chile’s finest Cabernet-based red wines is secure (Atkin, incidentally, now hails Almaviva as “one of the New World’s greatest reds”)—and most Chilean winemakers will accept that it played a hugely significant role in shaping the conditions in which Chilean fine wine could be taken seriously at all. So, what, then, did it—and does it—get right?
Almaviva: Making the marriage work
According to Michel Friou—the amiable, softly spoken Frenchman who has been in charge of winemaking operations at Almaviva since 2007 but has been making wine in Chile (at Viña Aquitania and then Casa Lapostolle and Clos Apalta) for 28 years—the seeds of the project’s eventual success lie in California as much as Bordeaux or the Maipo. “The Baroness [Philippine de Rothschild] wanted to do something in Chile like her father did when he made Opus One with Mondavi in 1979: an ultimate association with people who feel the spirit of family and excellence,” Friou says. “She wanted to bring together the great experience of French fine wine with the wonderful conditions in Chile.”
The project began officially in 1997, though the first vintage was actually in 1996 (“The technical people worked faster than the lawyers,” Friou says), and like the Rothschilds’ enduringly successful Napa collaboration, it was based on what Friou calls “the château concept,” starting, in this case, with 40ha (100 acres) in Puente Alto (at 2,130ft [650m] above sea level, the Maipo’s highest point) in a 50ha (125-acre) site first planted in 1978, with 5ha (12 acres) added soon after, and a further 5ha acquired in 2021.
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Today’s 60ha (150 acres) of productive vineyards make for an intriguing mix of planting styles and plant materials drawing on very different eras of Chilean viticulture. “The first vines were planted without rootstock, 2,000 to 4,000 plants per hectare [2.47 acres], traditional Cabernet Sauvignon without any special selection,” Friou says. “We made new plantations with 8,000 plants per hectare, planted on rootstock, and the last three or four years we’ve started to plant ungrafted, because that’s been better for [coping with] drought than rootstocks. We will try to maintain a certain proportion of rootstock in case we have phylloxera one day, but we don’t want to lose the pie franco.”
Drought is increasingly on Friou’s mind, with the past few years “drier than ever” and with irrigation “essential.” But the growing conditions in other ways remain, viticulturally speaking, idyllic, Friou says, with the close proximity of the Andes, the Maipo River, and the ever-growing city of Santiago all playing a part in shaping Puente Alto’s credentials as one of the world’s best places to grow Bordeaux varieties. “It might be warmer in the winter here [than other Chilean regions],” Friou says, “but it’s actually cooler in the growing season, with a 20°C [36°F] amplitude. Compared to Colchagua, I thought when I went north it would be warmer, but the influence of the Andes is stronger. We can be two weeks later-budding, and this means that at the time of the end of the ripening process, we are not at the peak of the temperatures—and as the temperatures go down, it helps us to keep fruit and acidity.”
Friou also stresses the importance of the complexity of the soils on what he says is “the Maipo’s oldest alluvial terrace,” which, with their mix of poor, rocky soils and loamy clay, help keep pHs low and shape the wines’ “elegance, balance, and minerality.” Tasting a selection of vintages going back to 1999, it’s clear that Friou and team have been putting more emphasis on that fashionable trio of attributes in recent vintages, with extraction, density, and oak palpably expanding and contracting according to changing fashions over the course of the past quarter-century. Friou himself acknowledges that the kirsch-like density and power of 2003 “would not be popular now” and that the slinkier “2021 would not have been popular then.” But even amid the years of excess (and even in recent years, when alcohol levels have routinely touched 15%), Almaviva always retains a seam of freshness and cool as part of its signature.
Another element of that signature—its Franco-Chilean identity—comes through in the assemblage. Cabernet Sauvignon takes the lion’s share, between two thirds and three quarters of the blend, which is vinified in 10,000-liter and 15,000-liter tanks and aged for between 16 and 20 months in French oak, 70% new. There are also small proportions of Cabernet Franc and, since 2010, Petit Verdot. But the wine has always had a strong contribution from Carmenère, ranging from 15 to 30% depending on the vintage, albeit that it owes its place, as it does in so many Chilean vineyards, to a happy accident. “There was 19% Carmenère in the very first vintage,” says Friou. “It was thought of as Merlot, but it wasn’t really; Merlot is not really adapted to the place or the country. Carmenère smooths the angles and brings some colors to the blend.”
Tasting
1999 Almaviva
(78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenère, 3% Cabernet Franc; 13.5% ABV)
Michel Friou: “A dry year, with 85mm [3in] of rain, and not so warm as some people have said; small yields, very small berries.”
Lovely color, just starting to show some tawny to the rim, but nice and bright in the core. Delightful maturity on the nose: lots of cherry, spice and fig and herbs; lovely, caressing but detailed-in-texture quality to the tannins; a subtle candied element; molasses, too. Great length and suave tannins; polish and depth; lovely complexity on the return to the glass. | 94
2003 Almaviva
(73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Carmenère, 3% Cabernet Franc; 14.5% ABV)
MF: “There was a lot of winter rain, 530mm [21in]. The spring was a bit cool, and everything was late, but there was an Indian summer, really warm, and that generated a riper profile, more of the style of the time. Fashions change: The 2003 would not be popular now; the 2021 would not have been popular then.”
Quite dark and inky still; ruby toward the rim. Kirsch and brandy-like tones, even a touch of rancio, citrus-peel quality on the nose. On the palate, quite earthy, elemental tones; dry tannins and lots of extract—this is, as Friou says, a wine of its times, with some high-toned, hot-season violet notes and a bit of alcohol on the finish. | 89
2007 Almaviva
(64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Carmenère, 7% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot; 14.5% ABV)
MF: “Quite normal (365mm [14in]) in terms of rainfall; quite warm until mid-March, then it became clearly cooler. On the whole, a situation we like—it helps to keep freshness and acidity at the end of the vintage. The year was very good, but the reception of the press wasn’t so good at the beginning.”
Still dark purple. Arresting creamy nose with menthol; mint-cream; herb (Carmenère?); also red apple/toffee apple and ripe cassis. Plenty of alcohol, too, quite strong tannins; very dense and intense—but a long, detailed, and ultimately flourishing, refreshing finish. | 92
2008 Almaviva
(66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Carmenère, 8% Cabernet Franc; 14.5% ABV)
MF: “A difficult vintage: quite dry and cool in winter. Also, a late vintage, with quite a warm growing season—not what we like in terms of ripening, as you start to get dry berries, and you have to find the right middle way. Today, we are working with optical selection, but in 2008 it was difficult.”
The most stereotypically 2000s-era “Chilean,” with its ripe, blackcurrant-pastille fruit quality; lots of warm, rich fruit, still dense and super-powerful. A little bit of a bruiser, this fella, but with layers and definition beginning to emerge in classic Almaviva style. | 90
2010 Almaviva (61% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Carmenère, 9% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot and Petit Verdot; 14.5% ABV)
MF: “A cold year, with low yields, coulure (and lots of it) in November, because of low spring temperatures: late budding, late harvest, late everything, small quantities, small berries. We picked 90% in May, which is quite late. There was more Carmenère (29%) than normal, and for the first time, we used Petit Verdot.”
Super-dense dark appearance and a very likable, plush style, with a lovely, embracing richness of fruit. Great drinkability and really attractive, velvety tannins; soft, composed, and full. Proper, panther-purring, velvety Chilean Maipo Cabernet, still with coolness and crunch on the finish. | 94
2013 Almaviva
(72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenère, 6% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot, 1% Merlot; 15% ABV)
MF: “There was much less rainfall in winter, more in spring—which is not common. On the whole, it was cooler than other years.”
Attractive, still-bright ruby color. Very buoyant and ripe (maybe just shading into overripe) in style, with a hint of a candied character mingling with fresher black cherry and a floral tone: spice and dark chocolate complexity, with settled, smooth, resolved tannins. | 92
2016 Almaviva
(66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Carmenère, 8% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot; 14% ABV)
MF: “An El Niño year, and cooler on the whole, with some rain in winter, but not really more than usual. Loads of rain in the second and third weekend in April: quite Bordeaux-like. It’s the year with the lowest alcohol—a different level of ripening. A bit more Bordeaux style.”
Toast and coffee-grain oak on the nose. This is very much lighter in the glass and a very different style: much less concentrated and savory, lighter, more energetic, lots of red fruit here and a Syrah-like spice reduction. Quite graceful in a way, but with sour cherry fruit and some tang. Michel says Bordeaux; I think maybe something more spicily southwest French—but an enjoyable excursion either way. | 92
2018 Almaviva
(72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenère, 6% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot; 15% ABV)
MF: “A very good year all over Chile. Normal rainfall in winter; the rest of the year was warmer and drier. Very positive conditions.”
Very intense and dark—a shimmering, black-fruit quality. Classic Maipo flavors of blackcurrant and black cherry, but with darker, olive tapenade and some attractive green hints of minty herbiness lending some bright contrast to a big, brooding, but silky long-lived wine. | 94
2021 Almaviva(71% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Carmenère, 5% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot; 5% ABV)
MF: “A special year: a little drier than usual in winter; a warmer spring. Then in the middle of veraison, we had 54mm [2in] of rainfall. It was a bit frightening, but fortunately there was no more rain, which meant the flowering and ripening was more homogenous. There were cooler temperatures just after the rain, so from January until harvest the situation was clearly cooler. It’s a wine with a different profile—not concentration and power; more purity and precision and freshness than we’re used to.”
Attractive, youthful look. And in the glass, too, there is some tightly furled concentration, but the fruit is immaculate, bright, and layered, red- and blackcurrants and cherries interlaced, and the tannins so poised, fine, and sleek. Needlepoint acidity. Refined, fresh, modern Chilean wine—hugely enjoyable. | 95
