Flaherty Cauquenes

Region: Maule Valley, Chile
Varietal: Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, País
ML: 750
 
Ed Flaherty is a Californian who went to Chile in 1993 to work a harvest and never left. He worked with some of the top Chilean wineries over the years before starting Flaherty in 2004, one of the first boutique wineries in the country.
Ed hand-crafts complex and consistent wines by blending. The Cauquenes blend, first released with the 2014 vintage, is about half Tempranillo and half Petite Sirah, with a bit of País from the hundred-year-old vines on the winery's property. The blend clearly reflects its origins, grown from dry-farmed, head-trained vines on the deep red clay soils that dominate the area. The wines from this vineyard feature well-structured tannins, wild blackberry and cherry flavours, and lots of earthy spice.