Tabalí of Limarí – A Winery Profile

Carving Out New Territory in Chile
by David Lawrason

“In the end I just want beautiful fruit.”

When Felipe Müller speaks about Tabalí, it is with the pride and wonder of new parents talking about their young family. That’s partially because Tabalí is new and developing, in a region of Chile that is also new and developing. Furthermore, he is also actively taking on exciting new projects in other distinctive terroirs in Chile. The Tabalí family is growing fast, and the wines are very good indeed!

We in Ontario will get to discover their quality this year as many of the wines roll out through LCBO and agent-direct channels. I was able to taste them as a complete body of work in early June at WineAlign, and I was very impressed. Below I highlight some of my favourites, with indication of where and when they will be released.

Felipe Müller is the CEO and Chief Winemaker of Tabalí, that was founded in the Limarí Valley in 2002 by wealthy Chilean businessman Guillermo Luksic Craig, who passed away in 2013 leaving his enterprises to his five sons and the Presidency to his older son Nicolas Luksic. Guillermo had family ties to the community of Ovalle in the Limarí but there were no vineyards there at the time; just pasture and wild scrub in a unique valley that opens onto the Pacific Ocean, about 400 kms north of Santiago. He decided to build a modern winery in 2004 nestled within a ravine near the Limarí River, and hired Müller in 2006, one of the brightest winemaking talents of Chile.

Felipe Müller

In the early days they tried several different grape varieties to see which would click, but the coolness of the region quickly dictated that it would not be late ripening cabernet sauvignon. That was worrisome in a country where cabernet sauvignon is still far and away the dominant grape variety and market leader.

So that left the challenge of having to build a business with a new winery, in a new region, with less popular grape varieties. One of the viticulturally successful varieties was syrah, but even that grape was new, having only been first planted in Chile in 1993.

By now however Tabalí syrah is established as one of the best examples in the country. “But syrah is still weak in the market today,” says Müller, “so all along we have had to seek other places and find grapes to broaden our range.”

The process got a kick start in 2009 when Müller noticed the quality of fruit coming from a grower in a vineyard called Talinay. He went out to investigate and discovered that 85ha site only 12 km from the Pacific, sheltered among low coastal hills that are part of a Unesco World Heritage site, had almost pure limestone soils. Much of Limarí is alluvial sand and gravel from centuries of shifting river courses carrying Andean run-off, but this little triangle of viticultural paradise missed that effect and remains limestone virtually to the surface.

Talinay Vineyard

Müller’s eyes lit up.  Limestone, cool maritime climate – complete with lingering morning fog – equals pinot noir and chardonnay. One simple test to determine limestone content is to put a piece of stone in glass and add lemon juice. The fizzier the reaction the better the quality of the stone. Talinay stone produced all kinds of fizz.

After convincing the owner to buy the under-utilized site – which was owned by a formidable Chilean winemaker – Müller went to work planting, and by the turn of the decade he was turning heads with Limarí pinots and chardonnays, as well as syrah. They possess elegance and linearity rare in other Chilean examples.

But Talinay was just the beginning of adventures with different terroirs that have driven Müller ever since. “Our brand is now all about place and geology,” he explained, “and that is a new message for Chile.”

The next geological exploration took him from the coast to a remote site high in the Andes – at 1600 meters in fact, which is higher than most sites in Mendoza, Argentina on the other side of the mountains. The site is a steep slope with very little top soil and then has a very weathered and fractured bed rock of volcanic origin with considerable basalt content. And because it faces east it gets more of his ultra-bright, high altitude sunlight in the cool of the day, which moderates temperatures in the hot interior.

Several varieties were trialed in the area, including elusive cabernet sauvignon, but malbec has shown the greatest promise. Roca Madre 2015 is a fantastic, mineral driven, pure-fruited and floral 100% malbec aged for 18 months in old French barrels of 4th use.

Meanwhile, the cabernet sauvignon search was still on, and Müller went south to the Maipo Valley where cab has long reigned. Instead of going to higher altitude in the Andean foothills where some Chile’s iconic cab-based reds are made, he found a site called Dom, in the coastal hills of lower Maipo. The 320metre high site faces south (cooler exposure) on sand, clay and rocky soils, but importantly, it was planted with massal (original) cuttings of vines responsible for some of the great Maipo cabernets (like Santa Rita’s incredible Casa Real).

Dom Vineyard

The first Tabalí wine from the Dom site is called Talud (a Spanish word for slope). It is 100% cabernet sauvignon, aged 14 months in French oak, and it possesses all the vibrancy and juiciness expected of Chilean cab, as well as sophistication.

Meanwhile back at the home site in Limarí another grape variety was maturing and starting to show great promise. Where cabernet sauvignon had failed to ripen cabernet franc did. With only 4 hectares it was largely being used as a blending variety (as is customary in many regions). Sourced from one of the oldest alluvial terraces of sand, gravel, clay and some limestone, a new single varietal bottling has been getting promising critical review (my hand is waving) and Müller is now grafting over some syrah to cabernet franc to increase production.

But the family keeps getting bigger!

The latest project which is unfolding as we speak, is sparkling wine made from – you guessed it – pinot noir and chardonnay grown on the Talinay limestone. It is a joint venture with a French Champagne house that has been in the works for almost five years. The first bottles are due on the market in 2018.

In 15 years Tabalí has grown from zero to almost 100,000 cases, which is tiny compared to the giants of Chile, but large enough to signal commitment and still be flexible.

Over half the production is in the less expensive Pedregoso tier, that is widely exported. The Vetas Blancas tier is the next largest production, featuring moderately priced varietal wines grown in the Limarí Valley. This line is a good fit for LCBO Vintages stores.

Then there are smaller productions of higher end, single vineyard wines like Talinay, Talud, Roca Madre, and a three-grape blend called Transversal that blends Limarí syrah and cab franc with Maipo cabernet. And finally, at the pinnacle, stands Payen an “icon” based on old vine Limarí syrah, recently infused with some elevating cabernet franc. Most in this range are available by private order, or on consignment

Click on the wines below to see recently posted reviews, with most wines tasted by most of the WineAlign team. If you are interested in purchasing a case of any of the private order or consignment wines below, simply click on the wine and you’ll see this button.

On Shelf Selections

Tabalí Vetas Blancas Syrah Reserva Especial 2013
VINTAGES Release September 2

Tabalí Vetas Blancas Cabernet Franc Reserva Especial 2014
VINTAGES Release October 14

Private Order/Consignment Selections

Tabalí Transversal Reserva Especial 2014
Now in Consignment

Tabalí Roca Madre 2015
Now in Consignment

Tabalí Talud Cabernet Sauvignon 2014
Now in Consignment

Tabalí Pedregoso Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2015
Private Order

Tabalí Talinay Chardonnay 2015
Private Order

Tabalí Payen 2012
Private Order

This feature was commissioned by Viña Tabalí. As a regular feature WineAlign tastes wines submitted by a single winery. Our critics independently, as always, taste, review and rate the wines – good, bad and indifferent, and those reviews are posted to WineAlign. We then independently recommend wines to appear in the winery profile. Wineries pay for this service. Ads for some wines may appear at the same time, but the decision on which wines to put forward in our report, and its content, is entirely up to WineAlign. See below for more details provided by the agent.

About Viña Tabalí

Viña Tabalí has for years been a pioneer and the most iconic winery in the Limarí Valley. Company president Nicolás Luksic is continuing in the footsteps of his father, Guillermo Luksic, who founded the winery in 2002, in ensuring that the places chosen for each variety have a singularity that is reflected in each wine. Nicolás explains, “what we are seeking is to produce high-quality wines that reveal their origin and transport the person tasting them to the soil and climate of Tabalí’s vineyards. That’s what my father always wanted to transmit.”

We produce exclusively, wines of terroir that express their place of origin with purity and precision.  The particular nature of the terroir in each of our vineyards means that Viña Tabalí’s production is appreciated by people who value wines with character. We are the pioneers and the biggest innovators in developing viticulture in the Limarí Valley and we will continue working on this.

We want to be a role model and a not-to-be-missed winery in Chile, whose wines are recognized as exceptional, singular and offering something different.

If you have any questions about Tabalí wines or would like to order a case, please contact [email protected].