Seña 2014

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.

Winemaker's Notes

“Deep ruby red with a crimson hue, Seña 2014 is an extremely complex wine that reveals a profound, layered and intense bouquet of red fruit including raspberry, red cherry combined with cedar, bay leaf, dill and subtle tobacco notes and a touch of anise, all framed by light aromas of cocoa and clove.The palate is rich, concentrated and full-bodied exhibiting abundant, youthful, yet supple tannins and a refined lingering finish.”

Tasting Notes

"The blend for the 2014 Seña was 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Carmenere, 11% Malbec, 8% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot from their stony soils. The different grapes are carefully fermented separately and with different regimes of maceration and extraction but always looking for elegance within the natural power of the zone. The final blend was transferred to French oak barrels, 67% of them new (a percentage that seems to be slowly going down), for the élevage of 22 months. This time, some 5% of the volume carried out its aging in new Stockinger foudres. This is very much in line with the 2013 and the direction set by that cool year. The wine is very harmonious, elegant within the house style. Another superb vintage of Seña. This should age effortlessly in bottle. 60,000 bottles were filled in March 2016." - Luis Gutiérrez, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate (4/28/2017, Issue 230), Ratings: 95