A new vintage of Don Melchor is being released to market, bringing to life a wine that shows the best expression of the Puente Alto terroir. Aromatic complexity, red fruit and flowers, tremendous freshness, a velvety texture, a very long and persistent finish, and the potency characteristic of Puente Alto achieve the balance that reflects Don Melchor’s distinctive character.

The 2020 vintage of Don Melchor is 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot, and 1% Petit Verdot and spent 15 months in French oak barrels (71% new and 20% second use).

The wine is the result of rigorous work by the agricultural and enological teams led by the Don Melchor CEO and technical director, Enrique Tirado, who is dedicated to understanding every detail of the terroir to obtain its best expression.

According to Tirado, the timely harvest in the 2020 vintage allowed for wines of excellent quality. Very well concentrated and ripe wines that maintain their freshness and liveliness from the different parcels of Cabernet Sauvignon, balanced and energetic wines with refined textures and full of different expressions of aromas and flavors that made possible the creation of a great 2020 Don Melchor.

The 2019–2020 season was marked by temperatures that were slightly higher than average. Precipitation was well below historic levels and concentrated during the winter months, followed by a nearly total lack of rainfall throughout the rest of the season. These extreme conditions resulted in a significantly earlier harvest, primarily during the month of March. The consistently cold nights during the ripening period made it possible to conserve all of the intense fruit expression in the wines along with the characteristic elegance of this denomination of origin.

The Don Melchor Vineyard is located in the Alto Maipo Valley’s much-acclaimed Puente Alto appellation, 650 meters above sea level on the northern terrace of the Maipo River at the foot of the Andes Mountains. Its 127 hectares are primarily planted to Cabernet Sauvignon (97%), and the rest is Cabernet Franc (7.1%), Merlot (1.9%), and Petit Verdot (1%). The old vineyard makes up 72% of the parcels which have an average age of more than 35 years.

This new vintage of Don Melchor, Chile’s first icon wine and a true benchmark among the world’s high-end wines, reaffirms its identity based on its impeccable heritage and history, the incomparable conditions of its terroir, and the depth of understanding and mastery with which it is made.