Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre Syrah, Apalta Vineyard

Description

Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre Syrah is a single vineyard wine from the San José de Apalta de Lapostolle vineyard located on the hillsides of Apalta. It is 100% Syrah.

Lapostolle was founded by Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle and her husband Cyril de Bournet in 1994. The Marnier Lapostolle family, founders and owners of the world-renowned liqueur Grand Marnier, is famous for producing spirits and liqueurs, but the family has also been involved in winemaking for generations. With a traditional Chilean old hacienda style, Lapostolle has a production capacity of 3,300,000 litres in stainless steel and French oak tanks, and more than 3.500 French Oak Barrels. After many years of hard work at Lapostolle, they finally completed the organic certification process for all three vineyard properties. On September 30, 2011, the registered and accredited German-based environmental certification company CERES – Certification of Environmental Standards – authorized all Lapostolle estates in compliance with Chilean, North American, and European required standard.

Apalta is located at 170 kilometers South West of Santiago in the Colchagua Valley. This valley has a special meso-climate that is different from the rest of the Colchagua Valley. Its climate could be described as Semi-dry Mediterranean; with a winter only rainy season and long dry summer. The grapes for the Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre Syrah are hand harvested into small 14kg crates and sent to the winery where the grapes bunches are firstly sorted by hand followed by berry selection using a Vistalys Optical Sorter. The grapes are pressed and the wine is fermented using wild yeasts in wooden vats with manual punching down of the cap to increase skin contact. The wine also undergoes malolactic fermentation in French oak barrels prior to ageing. The wine is aged in 225L French oak barrels for 15 months (48% new French oak and 52% second and third fill). The barrels are made by Saury, Baron, Radoux, SMF, Sylvain and Taransaud and are mainly medium toast.

Organic and Biodynamic certified vineyard by CERES and DEMETER (Germany)

The other wines in the Cuvee Alexandre range include a Chardonnay, Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.