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Highly challenging due to the climatic conditions of the season, the 2023 vintage of Don Melchor presents once again wines that reflect the unique character of the Puente Alto terroir.
In these temperature conditions, more extreme than expected in February and March, the extraordinary terroir of Puente Alto once again proved its ability to moderate the conditions to allow us to obtain excellent quality wines from this vintage. The vineyard and winery teams’ experience were vital in obtaining wines of great expression and balance, accompanied by excellent quality and intense flavors and aromas.
Average temperatures remained above the historical average for Puente Alto throughout the season, advancing the vineyard’s grapes’ development and ripeness. Vineyard management and ripeness monitoring were critical to harvesting grapes with a good balance between freshness and finesse expressions.
Between September and April, from bud break to harvest, we had an average temperature of 18.3°C, with temperature peaks in December, February and March. Despite this, cold nights helped in cooling this unusual situation and maintaining low cluster temperature.
Rainfall reached 178.2 mm throughout the season, mainly concentrated in winter. The spring and summer were drier, forcing us to manage vineyard irrigation well to achieve perfect bud growth and grape maturity.
Harvest was brought forward by one to two weeks, depending on the vineyard parcels. Harvest began on March 6 for the Merlot parcels, harvested mainly during the second week of March. In the case of Cabernet, the harvest started on March 14 and concluded on April 19.
“As a result of a highly challenging harvest due to its climatic conditions, wines are very expressive, intense, and full of flavors and aromas, dominated by refined textures and outstanding balance, showing the character of Puente Alto’s noble terroir”, comments its CEO and Technical Director, Enrique Tirado.
