Casa Lapostolle is a wine producer in Chile particularly known for its full-bodied, Carmenère-based flagship, Clos Apalta. It was founded in 1994 by Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle, whose family own the Grand Marnier brand.
The estate consists of three vineyards in three different regions totalling 370 hectares (914 acres). The Apalta vineyard, in the Colchagua Valley, is planted to Carmenère with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Syrah. The oldest blocks date back to the 1920s and include vines imported from France. The coastal-influenced Casablanca Valley has 57ha (140 acres) of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, while the Cachapoal Valley vineyard has 116ha (287 acres) planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah.
The Clos Apalta wine is hand-harvested at night from the best plots in the Apalta vineyard and is usually made up of roughly two-thirds Carmenère with the remainder split between Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The second wine, Canto de Apalta, is also based on fruit from this vineyard, while Borobo, which has a small amount of Pinot Noir, is sourced from all three sites. At the more everyday end of the spectrum, Lapostolle makes the Casa and Cuvée Alexandre wines.
Lapostolle’s main winery at Cunaco, where the majority of the wine is made, has a capacity of 3.3 million liters in stainless steel and French oak tanks. Its cellar holds over 3500 French oak barrels. Clos Apalta has its own, gravity-fed winery built into the mountainside in Colchagua on six levels. Clos Apalta is fermented in large oak vats before aging in new oak barrels for around two years.
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