ERRAZURIZ | Max Reserva | Cabernet Sauvignon | 2013
cabernet sauvignon | petit verdot | cabernet franc
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Today we are going to review a wine that is considered a chilean icon – Max Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 from Errazuriz. This is mostly a cabernet sauvignon wine, with a bit of petit verdot and cabernet franc, which are usually added for extra peppery spiciness. The winery itself was founded by Don Maximiano Errázuriz in 1870 and, in just over a century, its wines are now regarded among the world’s most noteworthy. More than that, in search for wines of an even higher quality, a new winery has been created from scratch, devoted exclusively to high-end wines, a winery where cutting edge technologies has gone hand-in-hand with sustainability and environmental protection, but enough with the theory, let’s get straight to the tasting.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:
Visual
Deep and noble garnet color, with bright purple hues towards the rim of the glass.
Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with ripe red and black fruits: ripe sour cherry, cranberry, overripe sweet cherry, red currant, wild cherry, ripe red plum, red delicious apple, anise, roasted oakwood, nutmeg and wolfberry. An instant later the nose is filled with notes of cinnamon, red pepper, cherry seeds, tobacco and some subtle hints of ampicillin.
Gustatory
The wine is extra-dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and firm tannin. It feels oaky, firm and smoky, with a nuanced fruity-spicy accent. This is a bold, complex and quite sharp wine, which has a nuanced angularity due to its rough tannins and austere acidity. The wine has a fair overall balance and it feels muscular spicy and woody on the palate.
Aftertaste
It has a medium-plus finish and a quite angular, bitter-sharp aftertaste.
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This is definitely a great Wine of Chile and the overall rating says the same, with 90.3 points scored it is right there, among the best wines we’ve tasted so far. Please click on the chart icon on the left in order to get to the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines we’ve tasted to date.
Conclusion: this is definitely a wine over its prime form – fruity, ripe and rough, that display clear signs of decline, yet, a wine that can be aged for another 5-7 years due to its sharp tannin and nuanced acidity. This particular vintage has been awarded 89 points by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and 91 points by James Sucling, which is a quite nice achievement overall. For the best experience, we recommend to pair this wine with a spicy garlic and rosemary grill steak or some roasted new york strip steaks marinated in soy sauce, as the later one is an epic pairing indeed – you just need to try it and feel the marriage between meat’s fat and spiciness and wine’s tannin and acidity – pure delight. Cheers!
WineStatistics tasting results:
ERRAZURIZ
Max Reserva | Cabernet Sauvignon | 2013
grape: | cabernet sauvignon | petit verdot | cabernet franc |
overall rating: | 90.3 |
conclusion: great | a must try
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(c) The WineStatistics ratings are based solely on our own knowledge of the world of wine and on our personal wine tastes, which may, or may not, differ from yours – the reader. There are no absolutes of right and wrong in wine appreciation.
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