Concha y Toro Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon

The 2006 Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon is a glass-coating opaque purple with an alluring bouquet of toast, tobacco, cedar, leather, mocha, and blackcurrant. Sweet, voluptuous (but not in a fruit bomb kind of way), layered, and complex already, its superb balance will ensure at least a decade of evolution and it should drink well through 2036.

A dark, muscular style, with black currant, braised fig, maduro tobacco, bittersweet cocoa and loam notes that all roll together through the dense but polished finish. There’s impressive power for the vintage, along with precision and balance. Drink now through 2018.

The price of one of Chile’s flagship wines keeps climbing, but fortunately so does the quality. Winemaker Enrique Tirago has crafted yet another pounding, saturated Cabernet. It’s wonderfully meshed yet potent and fierce. Boysenberry, cassis and kirsch flavors control the extracted palate, while the finish is warm, creamy and fun, sort of like a milkshake. At 14.5%, Melchor is at its max. Hold until 2010 and then drink through 2015.

Inky ruby. Expansive, intensely perfumed bouquet of dark berries, cherry pit, candied licorice and sexy oak spices. Broad, gently chewy cassis and bitter cherry flavors reach every nook and cranny of the palate, picking up an exotic violet pastille quality on the back end. Gains power on the finish, which features strong anise, tobacco and lead pencil qualities. Serious and in need of cellaring.

A ripe and enveloping Maipo cabernet, this wine’s oak plays an important role, containing notes of brandy-soaked cherries. Its youth is apparent in its strict, astringent tannins. Five years in the cellar will make it more accessible and complex.