Almaviva Red Wine 2016 750ml

An Almaviva Red Wine 2016 with 24% Carménère, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot from Puente Alto, Maipo that spent 18 months in French barrels. In a cold year, Michel Friu brings out fresh black currants and sour cherries with hints of sweet spices and notes of cigar box and mint.

Complex, with a loose structure, it is juicy on the palate, with more flavor than kick, enhanced by the refreshing herbal flourish at the end of an already lengthy finish.

Elegant, powerful and well-structured, with a refined mix of dark fruit, dried red fruit and spice flavors. Dried herbal notes emerge midpalate, with a minerally finish that is long and rich-tasting. Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2025.

Almaviva Red Wine 2016 was a challenging vintage for Almaviva, as it was for many Chilean producers, but Michel Friou has produced a delightful wine in a lighter style. Made from Cabernet Sauvignon with 24% Carmenère, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, it’s aromatic, spicy and quite forward with subtle mocha oak and raspberry and cassis flavours.

The Almaviva Red Wine 2016 was showing really well, quite subtle and austere, less showy than the 2017 and 2018 vintages. It has less alcohol than either of the following two vintages, and it’s perhaps a slightly different vintage of Almaviva, a little lighter and with a more elegant and subtle profile.

This is a vintage of more finesse, closer to a classic Bordeaux, with a dry, austere finish—there is no room for any sweetness here.