Clos Apalta
Colchagua Valley
2018

The producer

In 1994, Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband, Cyril de Bournet, discovered the Apalta Valley. Alexandra is the great-granddaughter of Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle, who founded Grand Marnier in the 1880s.

Shortly after their discovery they acquired a 40-hectare vineyard, at the entrance to the Apalta, at altitudes of 150-300 meters above sea level and granite rich soils with varying proportions of clay. The vineyard was planted with mainly Carmenere of on average 80 years old, and smaller portions of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. 

In 2009 the vineyards have been certified organic and since 2013, 7^th generation of family, Charles-Henri de Bournet Marnier Lapostolle has been in charge.

The winery is ultra modern with a 100% gravitational cellar, which by a succession of descending floors, means that from reception of grapes to bottling no pumping takes place, which is a much gentler way of processing the fruit.

The wine

Clos Apalta is usually a blend of 60% Carmenere, with the remainder equal parts of  Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Maturation for 25 months in 87% new French oak barrels, this is highly intense and bold black berry redolent red wine with complex black cocoa and leather notes and a long succulent finish.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.