Sensory features: The aroma of this pale golden wine is intense – initially more floral (rose petals) than grapey but still more like Muscat than Gewürztraminer. The floral character is underpinned by apricots and something like box, though one associates that smell with Sauvignon Blanc. After that initial captivating impression, the taste is a surprise: still grapey and perfumed but with an extraordinary smoky, almost sweaty, flavour of lapsang souchong and a definite dry saltiness that seems more intense than on the previous vintage. It's bone dry and the skin contact during fermentation seems to have added the scent of chamomile and hay, as well as a firm and unmistakable tannic effect on the finish.

Technical notes

The fruit for this Muscat comes from vineyards densely planted on mainly granite soils in 1975 in the Itata Valley, more than 500 km south of Santiago and just 18 km from the cold Pacific Ocean and its cooling influence. Densely planted bushvines (almost 7,000 vines per ha), which are ungrafted and dry-farmed. The wine undergoes extensive maceration on the skins in the amphorae for six months. The wine is then separated from the skins and put back into the amphorae for another six months before bottling. Nothing except sulfur dioxide is added to the wine, neither yeast nor other substances. It was also unfiltered.

Viejas Tinajas are old terracotta amphorae. The ones used to make the De Martino wine are over 100 years old.

Alcohol Content: 13%