Clos Apalta Winery – Makers of the Best Wine in the World in 2008

Clos Apalta Winery is probably considered the top winery in Chile because its Clos Apalta 2005 vintage won the Wine Spectator’s Best Wine in the World designation in 2008 with a 96 rating (if that means anything to you).  As such, they charge a hefty – OK, I’ll say it – offensive, $40 USD per person for a tour/tasting.  We didn’t know how expensive it was beforehand since most other wineries charge far less, but since we had come all that way, we just plowed ahead.  So, we’re writing it up separately to amortize the cost, by sharing it with everyone we know.  🙂

This winery, owned by the wealthy Lapostolle family from France, knows how to spend money and make money.  In fact, money is no object at this winery – spare no expense!   You’ll see why in the rest of the photos below.

Upon entering the estate, you drive about 1 km alongside beautiful vineyards of Carmenere, whose leaves turn in to a stunning red color in the Fall, before reaching a junction leading to the winery or the Lapostolle Residence.

The Lapostolle Residence is a set of high luxury villas, costing over $1,000/night.  The story goes that these villas were originally built for the Lapostolle family to vacation in when they were visiting the winery.  But, guests began to call about them, asking if they could stay there and how much it would cost.  The owner threw out a number that she thought would be obscene – so obscene that people wouldn’t pay for it.   Well, they did pay, and so the villas became a business.  Now, knowing this, think back to the tasting fee we paid… hmm…

The Winery

Here’s the winery building again.  It’s built to resemble a bird’s nest, with each wooden “rib” representing a month that the wine stays in French oak barrels.   Pretty cool… but it gets better.

When you pay $40 for a tasting, you have to think there’s a reason for that other than the fact they won an award.  Well, it’s because the overhead cost of producing this wine is exorbitantly high.  Take a look at the grape sorting scene here – they employ over 50 women to HAND PICK the grapes off the stems, after which the grapes are put on to a conveyor belt for final filtering and chilling.  Every other winery we had been to used machines to de-stem the grapes and only 6 people maximum to do the sorting, etc.

Here’s the fermentation room where they ONLY use vats made of French oak.  Remember, these things cost over $30,000 each and are shipped in from France.  Many other wineries will only have 3 or 4 of these (if at all) with the rest being stainless steel tanks.

Here’s the wine cave/tasting room where wines are stored for their first 12 months.  The ceiling is structured to resemble the inside of a barrel and has tiny lights embedded in it to provide ambient lighting.  This picture doesn’t really do it justice – it really is a beautiful space and experience.

The Clos Apalta Wine

Now, let’s talk about the wine.  We tried 3 wines, 2 of which were a “lower tier” label (not called Clos Apalta) produced at another facility.  Don’t get me wrong, they were still very good and if I remember correctly the price per bottle was less than $30.

There was one little mishap though (apologies for the ranting), our tour guide – a young woman probably a year out of college – served us corked wine, wine that had already gone bad.  It had come out of a bottle that was already open.  Usually, guides taste the wine with you to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you’re tasting what you’re supposed to, especially at a high end winery like this one.  Makes us think they really don’t have the customer service training down at this place.  Earlier, the guide even accused us being late!

Anyway, back to the wine.  The main attraction was the Clos Apalta wine, which is a blend of Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot.   They weren’t pouring the 2005 “Best Wine in the World” vintage (I’m sure they locked those up as soon as they won); but, they were pouring the 2008 vintage.

The verdict is, it is going to be a great wine someday.  It had a great nose and really concentrated fruit flavors, but it was also super dry and young.   In a few years and with some food, it would be great.  Would we pay over $70 for a bottle?  Maybe… but we’re not working right now so…  Maybe not.

Back to the photos…

So, going back to the photo above, see the people standing around the tasting table?  Well, it’s not really a table though it functions like one.  It’s actually the entrance to the owner’s private vinoteca below.  It looks more like going down in to a modern mausoleum than a wine library.  Or maybe it’s a spaceship.   In either case, I want to go down to there.

To get to the second storage room, you go down a gorgeous spiral staircase:

Here’s that same staircase from below:

And then you arrive at the second storage room.  The egg shaped object at the end of the room is a new cement fermentation vessel that they may use to experiment on a vintage in the future.  The egg shape is supposed to support natural circulation and the concrete supposedly helps keep the temperature more stable.  It’s a method we’d seen in Mendoza in older wineries.

Finally, before finishing the tour, you see an exposed rock wall…

The story here is that when they built the winery, they designed it so that the building would be part of the hill.  They thought the hill was made of dirt/sand so they could easily excavate what they needed, but then they found out that it was solid rock.   So, it cost them even more to take some dynamite to it to blow away part of the hill to build the building.  On the plus side, the rock naturally cools the wine storage rooms and protects against earthquakes.

The End

So, there you go folks – now you don’t have to visit the Clos Apalta winery.   Instead of paying that tasting fee, go to your specialty wine store and order a bottle of it, put it away for a few years, and then have it with a great meal.  You won’t be disappointed!