Clos Apalta, Prelude, 2024
Clos Apalta, Prelude, 2024
- 75cl
- 14%
- Red Still
- Carmenère, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc
- Organic
- Biodynamic
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Optimal drinking window: 2026 - 2039
Est. delivery in autumn, 2026
Clos Apalta's Prelude is a more approachable expression of the same Colchagua Valley fruit that goes into Clos Apalta - one of Chile's most celebrated reds. The blend leans on Carmenère alongside Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and the 2024 vintage, drawn from a warm, well-structured growing season, delivers exactly what the name promises: an introduction to the Apalta style, with genuine depth but without the decade-long wait the grand vin demands.
What the critics say:
"Deep, glossy currants with blackberries, cocoa powder, meat, dark olive and fine spices. Subtle citrus and blue fruit, too. Pretty full-bodied and juicy with tight-wound tannins and a long, almost dusty finish. Quite precise. 64% carmenere, 18% merlot, 14% cabernet sauvignon and 4% cabernet franc. Drink from 2027."
"The product of an easy growing period with a late harvest. Cool, fresh, bright and crisp. Creamy in texture and cedary aromatically with a subtle green herbal florality. There are notes of green peppercorns too, freshly crushed. Quite intimate, delicate and elegant with lovely finegrained tannins. Lifted and grippy, tense and tactile. The cool freshness of altitude is very authentically and beautifully conveyed. A lovely wine that is likely to represent great value."
The Apalta bowl is a natural amphitheatre of ancient alluvial and granite soils, sheltered from Pacific winds by the coastal range and receiving generous sunshine through long, dry summers. The valley floor and lower slopes hold more clay, while the upper terraces offer well-drained granitic material that gives the wines structure and freshness. Diurnal temperature swings between warm days and cool nights preserve acidity and aromatic lift, which is essential in a region that can easily tip into over-ripeness. The old vines — some Carmenère exceeding 60 years — dig deep into these soils and produce concentrated but naturally balanced fruit.
Colchagua Valley is Chile's most internationally recognised red wine appellation, sitting in the Rapel Valley region roughly 180 kilometres south of Santiago. It has built its reputation largely on Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère, and the warmer, more sheltered sub-zones like Apalta have produced some of the country's most ambitious wines. The appellation allows considerable blending freedom, which suits the Bordeaux-inspired style favoured here. Compared to the cooler Casablanca or Leyda valleys further north, Colchagua is unambiguously warm-climate country — structured, generous, and built for red wine.
The 2024 vintage in Colchagua arrived after a growing season marked by generally dry conditions and well-regulated temperatures through the critical ripening period — the kind of season that rewards growers who manage their canopies carefully and don't push yields. We should be honest: granular detail on 2024 is still emerging as bottles reach market, but the broad picture from the valley is encouraging. Carménère, Colchagua's signature variety, appears to have benefited from steady heat accumulation without the kind of late-season spikes that can tip it into jammy, overworked territory. The result is a vintage where the variety's savoury, tobacco-tinged character has had room to assert itself.
Across the board, 2024 looks like a vintage built on freshness and structure rather than sheer concentration — which, given how Colchagua has been refining its identity in recent years, feels like the right direction of travel. Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon from the higher-elevation sites around Marchigüe and Los Lingues show real definition. These are not wines that demand patience, but the better reds will be more rewarding from 2026 onwards and should hold comfortably until 2032 or beyond for the serious stuff.
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