Old Vine Pale
Truquilemu Vineyard
Cariñena Mataró
Empedrado – Maule Valley
2016 – Lot 63

“Deep lurid pink. Fresh raspberry, blood orange and candied rose on the expressive nose. Pliant and seamless in texture, offering intense red fruit and floral pastille flavours that are lifted and braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Puts on weight with air while maintaining urgency, and finishes sappy and very long, showing excellent focus and lingering raspberry character. I’d consider this suave, insanely easy-to-drink wine as more “light red” than “rosé.” – JR

8 Barrels Cariñena 1 Barrel Mataró
2521 bottles filled – Nov 2016

Acidity  (g / l) 6,73
pH 3,1
Residual Sugar (g / l) 2,8
Alcohol (% vol) 13,1

In a Nutshell

  • 1 of 11 wines from single parcels
  • Grower / partner Orellana family
  • Ancestral farming cultivating vineyard by hand and horse
  • Truquilemu is perhaps the freshest corner of The Maule Secano where reds just manage to ripen. This light red is cut earlier than the regular Truquilemu Vineyard.
  • Truquilemu Vineyard is found on the Coastal Range of mountains (much older and slower to cool than the Andes) Soils are granitic and sub-soils have cracked granite that allow roots to get deep into cracks.

The Vintage:
We removed the Garnacha from Old Vine Pale this year because the wine without out quite simply harked back to the 2o12 vintage when we first bottled an Old Vine Pale. Thus the 2o16 is austere and complex—a year for the die-hards and or those who simply want to get hungry. 

The Vineyard
It is hard to imagine someone having the patience and financial where with all to plant a red vineyard in this part of Empedrado. (It is simply so cool many years) It must have taken forever for these vineyards to have come into their own. Thank god someone had the foresight to be patient all those years ago whilst the vineyard could grow old.

The Making :

  • Ancestral farming by hand and horse
  • Naturally fermented with native yeasts
  • Fermented without skins in two parts: part of the blend pressed out like a white and part made as a red without skins.
  • Aged in barrels over ONE winter— barrels third use or more.
  • Yeasts native (we add Truquilemu wine from the previous vintage to a pie de cuba)
  • No temp control (besides opening closing windows) open tank, no nada
  • Pinch of sulphites after Winter has passed whether malolactic has finished or not.

Barrel Ageing:

  • Aged in barrels over one winter— barrels third use or more.

Tasting & Critics Notes
Vinous – Antonio Galloni, Feb 2017
Old Vine Pale Truquilemu Vineyard Empedrado Carignan & Mataró 2016  – Lot # 63 – 91 Pts
 (aged in neutral French oak barrels for three months; pH 3.2) Deep lurid pink. Fresh raspberry, blood orange and candied rose on the expressive nose. Pliant and seamless in texture, offering intense red fruit and floral pastille flavours that are lifted and braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Puts on weight with air while maintaining urgency, and finishes sappy and very long, showing excellent focus and lingering raspberry character. I’d consider this suave, insanely easy-to-drink wine as more “light red” than “rosé.”  Drink 2018 – 2023 Josh Raynolds

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate # 23o
Old Vine Pale Truquilemu Vineyard Empedrado Carignan & Mataró  2016  – Lot # 63 – 90 Pts
One of nine single vineyard bottlings from Garage Wine Co, the 2016 Old Vine Pale is a rosé sourced from Truquilemu, Empedrado in the Maule Valley. It is a blend of mostly Carignan and a little Mataró (Monastrell or Mourvedre) from the vines of the Orellana family who follow ancestral farming traditions, cultivating everything by hand and horse. Derek Mossman considers Truquilemu the freshest corner of dry-farmed Maule where reds just manage to ripen. It’s not clear if this is a rosé or a pale red, he now tells me this is a pale red intended to be chilled. 2016 is an austere year, and the wine is 13.1% alcohol with a low pH (3.1) and remarkable acidity. It aged in barrel for one winter. Light, spicy and musky. They have changed the style by taking Garnacha out and making it more austere, removing the sensation of sweetness. This is marked Lot #63. There were seven barrels of Carignan and one of Mataró, so some 2,200 bottles in total. It was bottled in November 2016. I also tasted the first version of this wine, from 2012, and it was still very much alive.

Notes upon past vintages of the same parcel

James Suckling . com
Old Vine Pale Truquilemu Vineyard Empedrado Carignan & Mataró  2015  – Lot # 53 – 91 Pts
This is the best rosé in Chile? Full body, with lots of cherry, watermelon and lemon character. Bright acidity. Some phenolics. So delicious – and serious. A blend of Cariñena and Monastrell.

 

 

Pictures of this vineyard taken over the past few years:

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/gwcotruquilemuvineyard/