Author: Dirk Chan
Our online feature this week is the 2016 La Playa Tinga Rio Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (Colchagua Valley, Chile) – $16.99, regularly $21.99.
La Playa (the Beach) is a family-owned winery with sustainable certification producing artfully crafted, estate bottled wines of Chile. TINGA is what the native people of Chile called the loud river that brought life to their land. Today, water from the TINGuiriricA river runs through the vineyards and nourishes specifically selected vines to create the line of Tinga Reserve wines.
Sustainable grapes yield the cleanest and most pure varietals, and there is no use of chemicals. They employ water-saving irrigation practices and use only native yeast strains and no genetically modified organisms.
The Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon hails from vines of 24 years of age, cropped at 4.0 tons per acre, aged 12 months in French & American oak with a production of 2800 cases.
An intense ruby red colored wine with notes of ripe strawberry and raspberry that is well structured and giving. Drinking well now with volume and well-rounded tannins. Not huge like American wine, but true to the varietal. Enjoy!