1997 Seña Red
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Tasting notes
84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Carmen è re. TA5.25 g/l, pH 3.91. 1997 was a drought year which resulted in generally low yields. Sourced from different parcels with vines up to 26 years old. Perfectly dry mid April harvest. Hand-picked fruit. Three-week maceration. Malolactic fermentation in French oak (43% new). Aged for 16 months in barrel. Dark blackish garnet. Very mellow mature nose. Warm and welcoming with only the freshness of Carmenère on the palate suggesting Chilean origins. Finishes a little suddenly but very correct and refreshing. (JR)
Critic scores
Jancis Robinson MW
Neal Martin, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 1997 Sena has a more inviting bouquet than the 1996, and is endowed with more fruit concentration with baked black cherries, strawberry, orange peel and dried tobacco that attest to a warmer vintage. The palate is medium-bodied with dry, dusty tannins. There is plenty of mocha tinged black fruit with a crisp acidic bite on the finish, although it does not have great length or authority. The nose is showing better than the palate here. Drink now-2017. Sena is the peripatetic wine that goes around the world challenging and, let it be said, often defeating First Growths in blind tastings. I will not enter into a discussion about that here, although it must be said that Sena is an impressive wine. Tasting through this mini-vertical from almost the first vintage, I did find a distinct improvement from 2007 onwards. While I understand that older vintages have their share of plaudits, I discerned more complexity and vitality as well as finer integration of oak on newer vintages, as if more thought had gone into the wines. The result can be seen in the wines themselves, in particular the outstanding 2010. Importer: Thienot USA; www.thienotusa.com
About the producer
Seña – literally meaning “signal” – was Chile’s first icon wine. In the early 1990s, the country had a reputation mainly for lower-end, high-volume wines, but Eduardo Chadwick, owner and president of Viña Errázuriz, set out to change that.