2017 Casas del Bosque Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon Maipo Valley Chile 750 ml

The 2017 Casas del Bosque Gran Reserva, from the winery twice named "Chilean Wine Producer of the Year” by the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London, is overflowing with sweet oak spice, licorice, and blackberry, and richly textured with supple tannins. 

Maipo Valley is often called the Bordeaux of South America—“the source for the lion’s share of the country’s best wines” in Chile, says Wine Enthusiast. Bordered on the west by the Coastal Range and on the east by the Andes Mountains, Maipo is a cradle of full-bodied and balanced reds characterized by dazzling freshness. Here, Casas del Bosque’s Cabernet vines develop on picture-perfect slopes leading to beautifully integrated Cabernets like this one. Because land and farm labor are so much cheaper in Chile than in the United States, Casas del Bosque can pack $35+ concentration into a $16 bottle. 

James Suckling has likened the Casas del Bosque Gran Reserva to “top Napa Cabernet,” and praises the 2017 for its “wealth of deeply fleshy fruit and fine-grained tannins.” Food & Wine ranked past releases in their Top 10 Wine Values of the Year lineup, and the 2017 is poised to outshine them all after an envelope-pushing vintage in Chile’s Maipo Valley imbued this release with incredible ripeness and depth of flavor.

Founded in 1993, Casas del Bosque has become one of the most visible and critically acclaimed leaders of the Chilean wine renaissance. In 2016, the winery’s profile rose even higher when they hired winemaker Meinard Bloem, named by Tim Atkin MW as “one of the younger generation of winemakers that is taking the country to new levels.” After working under the meticulous Sylvain Pitiot at Burgundy’s legendary Clos de Tart, Bloem is bringing Old World sophistication to Maipo’s plush New World wines.

Conditions are near-perfect in Maipo for the late-ripening Cabernet grape, with deep, well-draining, gravelly soils that resemble those of Bordeaux’s Left Bank. Daytime highs rarely exceed 80 degrees. Then, in the starlit maritime nights, the mercury plummets to the low 40s. That dramatic diurnal temperature shift stretches out the growing season, bringing small-berry clusters to superb natural ripeness. 

2017 was a hot, dry growing season in Chile, and relatively small yields—just four tons per acre—were harvested beginning at the end of March. The wine spent 11 months in French oak, 20 percent new and 80 percent used, imparting this wine with layers of silky texture and deep spice.

This wine delivers all the pleasure of a Napa-like powerhouse, but without breaking the bank. At $16 from Wine Access, this is a weeknight Cabernet that slams it out of the park.