Seña 2012

The beginning of Seña traces back to Eduardo Chadwick's trips to Napa in the 1990s, where he met Robert Mondavi.  Eduardo Chadwick's family owns Viña Errázuriz.  Mondavi visited Chile in 1993 and Eduardo was the one to drive him around. Mondavi was delighted with the potential he saw, but there was really no quality wine to show the world the potential of Chile.  As a result, Seña was established as a collaborative venture between Viña Errázuriz and Robert Mondavi.  Its mission was to make a Bordeaux style blend including Carmenere to give it a Chilean character. In 2005, Eduardo Chadwick bought Mondavi’s 50 percent, and since then it has been a Chadwick family winery, and a personal project of Eduardo Chadwick.  The vineyards have been worked biodynamically since 2005.  Eduardo's ambition is to create a Chilean icon wine, one which fully expresses the terroir (wine identity linked to local soil, aspect and climate) of the Aconcagua Valley, north of Santiago.  The wine world has recognized his success.  In 2004, in a blind tasting event hosted in Berlin that has since become known as the Berlin Tasting, Seña 2001 came in 2nd to its brethren wine Viñedo Chadwick 2000 (which was ranked 1st), forcing the venerable Château Lafite Rothschild 2000 to the 3rd position. 

Sena’s hillside vineyard is on the cooler side of the Aconcagua valley (the limit to ripen Cabernet and Carmenere), extending over 45 hectares planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Syrah. The colluvial soils on the valley’s slopes contain a variety of textures and stone proportions, resulting in a great diversity of well-drained gravel, rock and loam. The backbone of the wine is Cabernet Carmenere, complemented with the other grapes.

Tasting Notes

"The 2012 Sena is from a cool vineyard on a rocky hillside with some clay, in the middle of the Aconcagua Valley, where there is still some influence from the Pacific Ocean. This wine has always been a blend, and in 2012 it is half Cabernet Sauvignon, complemented by Carmenere, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. Bright and focused, with a nose mixing red fruit, it is also bright-colored, with ripe black fruit and balsamic notes in the shape of tobacco and cedar wood, with a medium-bodied palate, very good freshness and acidity, sophisticated, polished and fine-grained tannins. This is still a baby, but the silky texture makes it accessible now, while the complexity should come with more time." - Luis Gutiérrez, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate (6/25/2014, Issue 213), Ratings: 92, Drink: 2015-2022