Las Cartas

In 2004 wine importer Vino Del Sol collaborated with the great Chilean winery, Ventisquero, to form Las Cartas, a maker of two wines, a Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc.  We suspect the importer's contribution was monetary since the wine is made at the Ventisquero's Maipo winery and we wouldn't want that arrangement any other way.  Ventisquero is one of the best winemaking operations in that part of the world.  

Vino Del Sol is also a marketer of note.  All of the text in this post is drawn from their website which is refreshingly informative and not full of the self-apparent misdirection at the mass marketer sites.  All nineteen wineries represented by Vino Del Sol are family-owned, featuring sustainably grown estate fruit that make wines that over-deliver value in a terroir-driven format.  They want everyone to know that, as opposed to the mass marketers who usually concoct an enticing backstory to seduce the reader into purchasing the product.  

Las Cartas' Cabernet is sourced from twenty year old vines at Ventisquero's Trinidad Vineyard in the Maipo Valley.  After a low temperature maceration and fermentation in stainless steel, the wine is aged in French oak for six months and then in the bottle for three months before release.  It is a readily approachable, berry fruit-driven quaff that sells very well off the shelf.

Now here's what's interesting - Usually when a red and white are described the red gets more promotion and the white gets short shrift.  At the Vino Del Sole website the Sauvignon Blanc text is more expansive and detailed than the Cabernet, like they are prouder of that one.  The wine is 100% Casablanca Sauvignon Blanc cold macerated for 12-14 hours for skin contact before a slow cold fermentation.  Four months of a slow battonage (stirring in the barrel) follows that.  No oak is used at any point.  The result is a complex blend of citrus and tropical fruits with minerality at the finish.

Like most Chileans, these wines are moderately priced.