At last! I have found something high-end and exciting from Chile, after a string of near misses and disappointments.
It’s a new-ish boutique winery, Tunquen. You can find their website here. These wines had something different to most Chilean wines, and I really liked them. The winegrowers here are clearly aiming at elegance, avoiding over-extraction, and keeping the oak toned down. It works: it is just too easy to over-extract in Chile.
Tunquen Cabernet Franc 2011 Casablanca Valley, Chile
Wild yeast ferments, aged in older French oak. Fantastic perfume of cherries and sweet raspberry and strawberry fruit, with some green leafy notes. The palate is supple, ripe and smooth with some fine, spicy, tea-leaf characters. Quite mineral. Sweet but fine. 93/100
Tunquen Malbec 2011 Casablanca Valley, Chile
Wild yeasts, old oak. Lovely complex, aromatic nose of fresh cherry fruit with herbs and pepper spice. Supple palate has sappy green notes, black cherry, raspberries. Expressive and fine with complex peppery, spicy notes as well as supple fruit. 93/100
Tunquen Pinot Noir 2011 Casablanca Valley, Chile
Lovely aromatics of sweet cherries and plums with some liqueur-like richness. The palate is ripe and juicy with lovely fruity character and some sweetness of texture. Pure, supple and lively with real interest and some finesse. 92/100
Find these wines with wine-searcher.com
3 Comments on Tunquen: impressive boutique winery from Chile
Revisiting these wines over a period of 3 days, I think I may have underrated the Malbec and Cabernet Franc. They’re such good wines.
Funny how Casablanca was initially perceived as a crazily-cool area for whites and now you have Cab Franc and Malbec there.
If you liked these do much, I wonder if you’ve tried many other of the MOVI wines?
Good to know that you´ve tried the Malbec and Cab Franc after some days. In some way we think they are just newborns, and have a lot of potential. This was the first vintage, and the 2012 is coming quite great as well.
In the same way, we think Casablanca will evolve in some more years, and I would not be surprised if we begin to talk about other red varieties as well (at least this is what we intend to do). So stay tunned!!!
And Andrew, I agree with you, some of MOVI wines are among the most honest and finest you can find in Chile. It´s an amazing association, and we´re very proud of being part of it.