Don Melchor launches single parcel series

Viña Don Melchor has launched its first single plot wine in 35 years – a limited-edition wine that highlights the micro parcel-concept behind its iconic wines. Arabella Mileham reports.

The launch of DM/01 vintage 2022, which comprise a limited-edition run of only 500 bottles, marks a new milestone for the brand’s history, according to the Don Melchor team, which has spent 35 years dedicated exclusively to a single wine.

Speaking to db on our recent visit to the vineyard in Puente Alto, general manager and technical director of Viña Don Melchor Enrique Tirado explained that it was a “complementary” addition to the Don Melchor’s portfolio rather than something that could be seen as second wine.

“In the past we have had fantastic wines used in the final blend, but obviously sometimes we didn’t use 100% of it,” he explained. Many of the elements not used for Don Melchor have previously gone towards the Marques Casa Concha Heritage line which is owned by Don Melchor’s parent company, Concha Y Toro, however there remained the opportunity to bring out

However, Tirado insisted that although the plots have never released as separate wines, the new Parcel Series did not represent a second made from wine not used in the main Don Melchor blend.

“No, the idea is to express every year a different parcel. We started with the parcel number one, because in 2022, parcel one showed fantastic red fruit expression, balance, everything.”

Wines in the series will be released each year but rather than doing so in a sequential order, it will based on the best parcel of each particular vintage. “So, it could be Parcel #03, #05 or #06 next year, then Parcel #01 again,” Tirado explained, noting that a decision is being made about the 2023 release.

The range will “get the consumer closer to the parcel concept at Don Melchor”, he added.

An expression of Puente Alto

And this micro-parcel concept is central to Don Melchor’s iconic Cabernet Sauvignon.

“The complexity and character of Don Melchor comes from the parcel conception,” Tirado explained, with the aim always to make the best expression of Puente Alto’s Cabernet Sauvignon. “The different mosaics of Andean soils – more or less soils and clay elements – means the roots develop different and there are different vineyard and wine expressions.”

Its famed vineyard is nestled in the heart of Puente Alto, between Almaviva on one side and Chadwick on another – a 120ha plot that was once farmed as a single block. However, soon after Tirado first arrived in Puente Alto in 1997, he took the decision to subdivide the Cabernet Sauvignon plots of into seven blocks of varying size, and a series of exhaustive soil studies and advances in understanding of the terroir and Cabernet Sauvignon itself, were subsequently divided further into as many as 151 subplots. (There are also separate, smaller blocks of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot).

Walking through the vineyard, Tirado points out the changes in terms of the amount and size of the stones in different plots, how the depth of topsoil varies from 10-50cm, with different components of soil, with its capacity for water retention and the main nutrients. The vineyard cannot be seen as a continuous whole therefore, and with each corner of the vineyard having “its own identity” and a “mosaic of unique expressions”, its management cannot be uniform either.”

“This led us to divide the vineyard into different parcels, to be able to work and understand each row, each vine, each soil difference as something unique,” he said. “The complexity is fantastic, it helps us achieve great complexity in terms of aroma, flavour and texture.”

“You can see the Don Melchor personality and all the different parcels add a different element to it,” he told db.

The plots are all vinified separately and correspond to individual tanks in the winery, resulting in a hugely complex array of around 220 wines – 151 free run and 70 pressed wines – that become the building blocks for the final assemblage of Don Melchor. This is blended each year in Bordeaux over the course of three days with consultant winemaker Eric Boissenot, the man behind iconic names as Latour, Lafitte and Margaux.

“I taste better there,” Tirado smiles, “I try to restart every year and to feel free of preconceptions in order to make the best wine, which expresses some special emotion.”

Now for the first time, it is going to be possible for people to taste the 2022 vintage alongside the DM/01 vintage 2022, to see some of the individual elements that go into the main blend.

As Tirado explains “I realized it was the perfect moment to highlight the unique beauty of each parcel and bring it to life through its individuality. I decided to embrace the singular expression of each vintage, highlighting the particularity of each parcel.”

Parcel #01 is the oldest in the Don Melchor vineyard, having been planted in 1979 with pre-phylloxera massal selection brought at the end of the 19th century and grown on own roots. This, the team said “represents the essence and authentic legacy of Viña Don Melchor” and although it will continue to be “an essential part of the final blend of Don Melchor”, its “power and distinctive character” in the 2022 vintage was singular.

Tirado said that the wines from this parcel were characterized by intense aromas of red fruits, floral notes, and a fresh, vibrant expression, standing out for its elegance, smoothness, and fine tannins which delivers “a long and pleasant persistence on the palate,”

“Every year, every vintage, it expresses the red fruit floral notes with some freshness at the same time,” he said. “The floral notes and delicate talents, the finesse, the balance [in the Don Melchor blend] comes from parcel #01. This, he added contrasted with the more mineral notes of parcels #03, #04 and #06, which are more graphite and mineral in flavour.

“Many time when you taste some specific parcel, and you taste this parcel, and you it’s a red wine with a nice expression, but then when you try it in the final blend, sometimes it doesn’t work,” he added.

Appealing to new consumers

María de los Ángeles Moscoso Correa, head of PR & fine wine content noted there has been demand from final consumers to see the building blocks of each particular parcel. The trend over the past ten years has seen the “classic consumer” of Don Melchor looking for new and exclusive things, she says – and the brand has been increasingly appealing to a younger generation.

“After 35 years, we see the opportunity to present a new innovation and refresh the image and bring the product to new consumers,” she said. The packaging for example presents it in a new and interesting way that moves away from the more classical representation, with a horizontal label design that includes a QR code providing detailed information about the parcel.

The release – a blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Cabernet Franc, aged for 15 months in French oak barrels (64% new and 36% second use) comprises just 500 9L cases (6,000 bottles) which will be presented exclusively in Don Melchor’s top accounts globally. For now, it’s only available in Chile, through the Concha y Toro store in Pirque and as part of the “Top of the World” experience at Casa Don Melchor, although it will be released globally later this year.