Ravanal 2023 Gran Reserva Carmenère

ABOUT THE PRODUCER

• Viña Ravanal sits in Placilla, at the eastern end of the Colchagua Valley, beside the old San Fernando–Pichilemu rail line. Mario Ravanal — eldest of eight, raised by a farmer father — studied agronomy at the Universidad de Chile and went to France in 1960 for postgraduate work in enology and viticulture at Montpellier and Bordeaux.
• On a visit home in 1965 he heard a property in Placilla was for sale, bought it for the vineyards already producing on it, and has spent the sixty years since among them. Some of those vines are over a hundred years old and were bearing fruit long before the family arrived.
• His three children — Carmen Paz, Pía and Mario Sebastián — are all enologists and run the estate today. Every vineyard is family-owned, in Placilla and San José de Manantiales, and everything is hand-picked.
• The valley floor runs stony, clay and deep alluvial, with a sharp day–night temperature swing off the Tinguiririca. Ripening is slow, yields are low, and concentration is the payoff.

ABOUT THE WINE

• Carmenère is the valley’s signature and the variety that punishes impatience in both directions — picked early it is green, picked late it loses the spice that makes it worth drinking.
• Ravanal’s is picked in that narrow window, off 25-year-old estate vines in the vineyards surrounding the winery, harvested in the second week of May, and it shows in the aromatics.

Vintage: 2023 | Wine Type: Red Wine
Varietal: 100% Carmenère
Origin: Chile | Appellation: D.O. Valle de Colchagua
Vineyard: Estate — Placilla and San José de Manantiales, hand-harvested; silty clay loam, 25-year-old vines
Elaboration: No pre-fermentation maceration; 8-day fermentation at 24–26°C, full malolactic; aged 12 months in 225-litre French and American oak, 20% new.

TASTING NOTES

Deep ruby with a violet rim. Incense and sandalwood over peppery black fruit — ripe plum, blackberry, baking spice, vanilla and dark chocolate — the varietal spice you only get when the fruit is not hung too long. Medium-bodied, soft fine-grained tannins, generous texture, fruit and wood running together through a smooth, lingering finish. Serve at 60–62°F.

TECHNICAL DATA

Production: 8,200 cases | Alcohol: 13.5% | TA: 5.24 g/l | Residual Sugar: 3.80 g/l | pH: 3.71 | Format: 12 x 750 ml

PRESS & POINTS

2023 – 91 Points, James Suckling: typical Carmenère spice, “incense and sandalwood with peppery fruit,” medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins and a lengthy finish.

2023 – Gran Oro (Grand Gold), Catad’Or World Wine Awards 2025