Montes Vineyards, Leyda Valley (Chile) Sauvignon Blanc “Limited Edition” 2006 (TGIC Importers, $14.50):
You know that you’ve got a hot tip on a wine when you hear it from the winery’s competition.
I was sipping pisco sours at a restaurant in Santiago in the company of several wine producers, talking about the remarkable progress that Chilean Sauvignon Blancs have made in recent 
years. We discussed how instrumental the cool coastal wine regions have been for Sauvignon Blanc, specifically Casablanca and more recently San Antonio and its sub-zone, Leyda Valley. I complimented one of the winemakers on his own coastal Sauvignon Blanc. Then he asked, “Have you tried Montes’ Leyda Valley Sauvignon? It’s one of the best.”
I had a chance to try the wine not an hour later, over dinner. It was terrific, and so was its price. I wasn’t necessarily surprised at the quality of the wine, because I have high expectations of winemaker Aurelio Montes. What intrigued me was that this winery based in Curicó, in Chile’s Central Valley, had ventured into the coastal regions–not only Casablanca but also Leyda. Athough Montes makes a good Sauvignon Blanc from Curicó, apparently the potential for Sauvignon Blanc in the cooler coastal regions was too enticing to reisist. In 2004, Montes entered into a long-term lease for 120 acres in Leyda Valley.
The 2006 Montes ‘Limited Edition’ Sauvignon Blanc is a fresh, flavorful, unoaked Sauvignon Blanc with penetrating aromas and flavors and crisp acidity. So is Montes’ ‘Classic Series’ Sauvignon Blanc, an $11 wine that’s a blend of Casablanca (51 percent) and Curicó fruit–and so are many other Sauvignon Blancs from Chile and elsewhere. What makes the Leyda Valley wine special is its very high quality and its ability to pull off this fresh, flavorful, crisp style with more finesse than the norm.
Take the wine’s aromas and flavors as an example. As much as I personally enjoy Sauvignon Blancs that have ‘green’ aromas, even vegetal character of raw green beans, bell peppers or asparagus, those aromatics do not occupy the highest end of the quality spectrum in the minds of most winemakers. (In New Zealand, for example, passionfruit is the aroma/ flavor goal of many winemakers, and descriptions of vegetal character are considered pejorative.) Montes’ Leyda Sauvignon has a frank, piercing aroma but one that suggests grapefruit, lime zest and stony mineral character. It also has no candied fruit character, an aroma or flavor that, in my opinion, marks a wine as more mass-market than high end.
Another element of quality is the wine’s length across the palate. To use Montes’ $11 Sauvignon as a comparison, that wine delivers a bigger impact in the front of the mouth, but the wine is rather ‘upfront’–as many wines today are–and does not persist across the palate. But the Leyda Sauvignon, while having a less dramatic delivery, has flavor that carries all the way to your swallowing and beyond, into the finish. Its flavors are concentrated, they are intense, and they are persistent.
I suppose that’s a lot of analysis for a $14.50 wine. But this isn’t just a good $14 Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a world-class Sauvignon.
90 Points