The O. Fournier winery holdings are vast, stretching from Ribero del Duero in Spain to Argentina and Chile. They’ve been around for a while and have had quite a bit of experience making wine in a variety of different soils, climates, and countries. Their newest project is in Chile, where they are releasing wines under the “Urban” label, a style of wine that they say has “the spirit of the city.”
This week’s wine of the week is from that new line and is simply called, Urban Maule Red Blend 2009 (Maule is the Chilean valley where the grapes are grown). The winemaker, Juan-Manuel Ortega, is no stranger to the U.S. As a Wharton graduate and former investment banker, he found out that it is a lot more fun making wine than making money on Wall Street.
Urban Maule Red Blend 2009 is one of his newest wines, a Bordeaux-style blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot and 5% Carignan. It offers sweet spice notes in a ripe and fruity body that comes with an easy-to-like price tag. It’s solid with flavors of damson plum, black raspberry, red licorice and toasty oak, while stays fresh and focused on the mid palate all the way to the vanilla uptick on the finish. Mark this one down in the “easy to like” category.
Vino Bello Wine of the Week: Urban Maule Red Blend 2009, $14.99. Check out our website at http://www.plazawine.com.
