2020 Grillos Cantores Alto Cachapoal Cabernet Sauvignon, Clos des Fous

• Style: Silky, mineral-driven Cabernet
• Taste: Ripe cherry, black pepper, green tea, limestone minerality
• Food: Roasted beef, aged cheese, dark chocolate
• Occasion: Sunday lunch or weeknight
• Serve: 16–18°C, decant 30 mins

In the Glass — Tasting Notes

Luminous ruby opens with ripe red and black cherry, followed by whispers of black pepper and green tea. A distinct minerality—limestone and granite gravel from Andean soils—underpins the frame. Silky tannins and bright acidity hold everything in elegant balance, a wine that feels both generous and precise despite modest 13.5% alcohol.

The Winery — Clos des Fous

Four Chilean friends—viticulturist Pedro Parra, winemakers François Massoc and Paco Leyton, and business manager Albert Cussen—built their reputation by crossing traditional boundaries, sourcing grapes from the cooler, higher slopes of Cachapoal where smaller berries and deeper roots create wines of real finesse. The 2020 vintage benefited from low winter rainfall and cool summers that ensured slow, even ripening and concentrated flavour. Winemaking emphasised restraint: long, cool maceration followed by four weeks of gentle extraction, then 18 months split between wood and cement, allowing the wine to develop without over-extraction.

At Your Table — Food Pairing & Serving

This is a bottle built for roasted or braised beef, aged cheese (Gouda, Parmesan, funkier blues), and even dark chocolate. Its balance and sense of place make it equally at home on a weeknight table or a Sunday lunch spread. If you've been exploring reds from Cachapoal, or diving deeper into the region's offerings, this is exactly where to start. It sits among the finest expressions of Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile right now.