La Place de Bordeaux Autumn Offers: 2021 Seña (100 pts, JS) £560 per six
This morning's release of 2021 Seña may well be the most exciting wine to be offered on the Bordeaux Place this autumn, with a perfect 100-point score from James Suckling and priced at just £560 per six.
We tasted the new vintage in London yesterday with Pepa Chadwick, granddaughter of Eduardo Chadwick, who founded Seña with Robert Mondavi, and we loved its glossy texture and the cool, elegant style of the vintage. If you have yet to diversify your cellar to include top wines from the Americas, we strongly suggest starting with this new release.
First produced in 1995, Seña gained international attention at the 'Tasting Of Berlin' in 2004. Eduardo Chadwick took a gamble and won, pitting his 2001 vintage blind against First Growths including Lafite, Margaux and Latour and Super Tuscans including Sassicaia and Tignanello. Since then, Seña has routinely achieved excellent scores, but the 2021 is a standout success, also scoring 98+ points from The Wine Advocate.
Alongside the 2021, we tasted Seña's 2015 vintage, which seemed to us still in its infancy, but was beginning to show the same complex layers and nuances of secondary development that we would expect to find in Bordeaux First Growths. The 2021 is a blend of 50% cabernet sauvignon, 27% malbec, 17% carmenere and 6% petit verdot, grown on a 42-hectare vineyard on a hillside in the Aconcagua Valley. Aged for 22 months in 90% French oak barrels and 10% foudres, the final abv is 14%, but the 2021 is full of freshness and finely delineated fruit and floral aromas and flavours. Enjoyable when young, this vintage will also cellar beautifully for several decades.
Also released this morning, Rocas de Seña is not a second wine as such, but is Seña's junior sibling, made to the same high level, but from a blend of 35% Malbec, 21% Syrah, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Grenache, 9% Petit Verdot and 5% Mourvedre. We found the initial palate on the 2021 Rocas de Seña to be as impressive as the 'grand vin' itself, and only the intention (to make a wine for earlier drinking) sets it apart in quality from Seña.
Availability of both wines is extremely limited, so please let us know straight away if you would like to order.
Offered en primeur, available spring 2024.
