Our Haut-Brion-trained winemaker, Jean-Marc Sauboua, founded Altos in 2006 and, all together, has won over 180 Golds, Trophies, plus many high scores.
He works with the young Amaia Amestoy and Hector Gomez in the cellar, whose CVs includes experience at Napa’s Château Montelena, Contino and Murrieta in Rioja and Villacreces in Ribera del Duero.
They made this wine from old-vine (80+ years) Tempranillo and Graciano, vinifying it using Burgundy’s pigeage method.
This involves fermenting in open vats and plunging the skins into the liquid three times a day – hands-on winemaking that delivers great results.
Aged for two years in half new French oak and bottled unfiltered, the wine offers seams of intense black fruit with spice-box complexity.
However, a down draught from the Andes and the Pacific’s Humboldt Current both help to moderate temperatures by day and ensure very cold nights.
In addition, the sunlight is exceptionally bright and snowmelt from the Andes provides all the irrigation water required.
Viña Falernia, one of only two wineries in the valley, was built in the late 1990s by Italian Giorgio Flessati and won a Trophy with its first vintage. Elqui produces “some particularly gutsy Syrah at altitudes of over 2,000 metres” (World Atlas of Wine), and the Carmenère is equally robust.
Deep bramble, cassis and spice character, it's great with lamb. Best decanted.
only 34 left
Let’s go back in time! To the 1st century AD and vineyards planted to serve the ruling elite at the thriving Roman port of Troia. Here, on Portugal’s windswept Atlantic coast, the only grape that thrives in the dry, sandy soils and super-hot sun is local star Castelão. This small, dark-skinned grape boasts fathomless depths of flavour – if you know how to unlock it. Back to today and enter Gold-medal maestro Jaime Quendera at Portugal’s most awarded winery, Casa Ermelinda Freitas. Only made in the best years, this Black Red flies of our shelves as soon as it's in stock. So our advice is: if you see it, buy it! Rippling with ripe plums, black fruits and laced with chocolate, with a spicy oak finish. At 14.5% it’s got power, so sip slowly.
Ludovic Roussillon is one of the top viticulteurs in Bordeaux’s Entre-Deux-Mers. He knows how to coax the very best out of his soils to get the most flavour in his grapes. Work hard in the vineyard and the wine almost makes itself, he says. We’ve worked with Ludovic for a number of years, enjoying both his red and his white from Château Le Coin. This is another wine from his vineyards – mostly Merlot, with a little Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon – all vinified to bring out the fruit richness, supported by sleek tannins.
Rethink Bordeaux with this supple, generously fruity, rounded red. It’s already drinking really well, with or without food. Roast beef, full flavoured pasta dishes, charcuterie, cheese – this wine is very versatile.
