Almost twenty-nine years ago I tasted my first Los Vascos Cabernet. It was one of the first Chilean wines I had ever experienced, and frankly I was seriously impressed. It doesn’t hurt that the winery is owned by Lafite Rotchild, the famous first growth from Pauillac in Bordeaux, masters of fine wine.
Hugh Johnson has written that Chile may be the most perfect place on Earth to grow Cabernet Sauvignon. With ideal climate and vineyards that never experienced the scourge of phylloxera, Chile has incredible potential, which is why Lafite has chosen to invest so heavily in Los Vascos.
Back in the late 80’s, I put the 1988 Los Vascos in many flights, blind, against fairly credible Bordeaux. Time and again, the Los Vascos was picked as everyone’s favorite. Back then, the wine sold for just under $5.00/bottle. Pretty incredible…
Today I picked up the 2017 vintage and the wine is wonderful. Fruity with nice complexity and elegant structure. Well-balanced with a nice, long finish. Not built for long term aging, the wine does have enough structure to improve for the next 7-10 years.
Here’s the best part… I paid a discounted $7.50/bottle… Los Vascos is offering a $36 mail-in rebate for a case purchase. You do the math… that translates to $4.50/bottle… that is cheaper than what I paid for the 1988 vintage almost 29 years ago… that is incredible…
I recommend you run to buy this wine. The rebate is for purchases made before 12/31/2018, with claims filed by 1/31/2019.
Cheers!
There are supposed to have been four variations of this “hair-of-the-dog” hangover cure. The #2 is perhaps the most popular and the only one that survived prohibition in tact. I’m not even sure that reliable recipes exist for #3 and #4, despite finding a few on the Internet. A conventional search of my drinks library turned up nothing verifiable.