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Harvest 2018

Harvest 2018

Thoughts on harvest reporting 

Contrary to most harvest PR not every Garage harvest is more perfect than the last. Our latest release, you will discover, is not our ¨best expression of the vineyard to date¨ every year. It would be disingenuous to claim this. Our wines have harvest variation, and these texts are meant to help you the drinker / and our importers make sense of some of these variations.

"Many wines, like many of us, and yours truly, are late bloomers. These lesser vintages are only discovered half a dozen years later when the wines are all sold"

 

Vintages in the Maule [and/or Chile] are given much less attention than in say France. Most write about the tendencies of a harvest in Chile as a whole, and this is frankly as ridiculous as it would be to speak of a harvest in France as if it were only one consistently homogenous wine country. Poppycock-- full stop. Thus, what is written here in our website will not necessarily conveniently mesh with what you might find written about Maipo or other parts of Maule for that matter.  

These ideas and images are intended to inform without airbrushing over the poopy bits 

 

2018 - The Vintage

2022-1548 = 474 yrs of viticulture in Chile.
15 yrs / 474 yrs = 0.0316%

 

Many critics have called 2018 the best ever, but we think it is too early to tell. And most critics have only being following Chile seriously for a decade.   

We can only compare our works over the harvests since 2006 and consider that we have made many changes in these years developing our own team that helped us do much better work in 2018 than say in 2006. 

The question: does the sublimity of 2018 stem from the conditions of that year, the veritable revival of the old vines, our improvements in process and knowledge of said vineyards? All three? Mother nature deserves credit to be sure. 

In detail: 

  • There was high pressure for mildew [oidio] thwarted by close attention paid in December  
  • There was worry that the extreme temps of late February > 35 C would be too much, but the old vines effectively shutdown under these conditions and resisted.  (think: botanical shock absorbers). 
  • The [many] misty mornings of March (fruit cut March 10th – April 10) made us nervous, but in the long run it only led to more hang time.  
  • We must remember that when old vines drink deep [without irrigation] any given year is the culmination of the 2 Winter rains previous—not just the one previous. Thus part of the concentration of 18 is owed to the very dry 2017. Perhaps some of the purity of 2018 is from a lesser growth of herbs and flowers around the vineyard.  
  • We think the tannins and tension / balance of 2018 will be a tough act to follow. 

 

What were we doing as a company in 2018?  

 Proper consolidating of our viticulture team begins.  

We made a Cru for the first time: 

  • Over 12 harvests in Truqui certain cuartels emerged to have distinct personalities 
  • The Cru we separated is from a small triangular section with less natural yield greater concentration, and a somewhat perhaps darker more brooding personality  
  • Syrah from across the creek was added to the blend 
  • Fermented with more stems, there is a kind of buttressing effect to the structure.

 

What we learned in 2018: 

Getting your team to work more cohesively through the year can be more significant than the weather. (1st generation wine wisdom) 

 When making a wine that is a cut above it is not necessarily necessary to take the cream off the top, nor utilize more oak. Properly executed, it is about separating two wines with distinct personalities from the same vineyard. Each is treated differently to accentuate its distinct personality.  

 

What we learned: 

  • Truquilemu V. became more ethereal for the separation.  
  • Cru was born a more sturdy wine with extra stuffing and more tension.  

Both are more wine than the two blended previous vintages. 

 

Fieldcraft first release in 2018 [Semillon]   

As wine exports from Chile have boomed over the last twenty-five years, it has grown increasingly difficult for small growers to remain a part of the wine business ie to sell their grapes at a bonafide price. Fewer, larger buyers, looking for efficiencies, want more for less and they would have the small modernise: spray instead of cultivate, scale instead of focus, above all reduce the cost of labour. Often, it is in the labour where you find the wisdom of farming passed down through the ages: fieldcraft we came to call it. 

After experimenting with Semillon made on skins for a couple of years in 2018 we made a Semillon on skins for commercial release for the first time: Isidore Vineyard. This small vineyard was being neglected for three simple sins: too far from a paved road, too small to fill a truck, and its rows were too narrow for mechanization. Based upon early opinions, we are thrilled with the results and we shall continue to champion such vineyards, full of potential to be unlocked. 

Notable wines from 2018

Cru - Truquilemu

D.O. Empedrado - Maule Valley

Cariñena Field - Blend

2018

Semillón F1

Isidore Vynrd

D.O. Maule

2018

Reelegido CS Maipo Valley

 

2018

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