Seña is an authentic Chilean blend made from the finest Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot varieties. The Carmenere variety adds an evident Chilean personality to the wine.
An iconic decision is made from the heart. Following the sign of his intuition, in 1995 Eduardo Chadwick pioneered a joint venture with Robert Mondavi to handcraft a world-class Chilean wine. Chadwick searched alongside Mondavi for four long years before finding the ideal terroir in Chile’s Valle de Aconcagua that spoke to their instincts. Seña is the culmination of their vision – an expression of consummate quality and character.
1995 · CHILE’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL JOINT VENTURE · The two men pioneered Chile’s first international joint venture – a bold, and forward-thinking move at the time.
1997 · CHILE’S FIRST ICON WINE · Their instincts proved right: Seña’s inaugural 1995 vintage made history as Chile’s first icon wine, initiating a path for the high quality Chilean wines of the future.
2003 · MONDAVI’S LAST VISIT TO SEÑA’S VINEYARD · An inspiring story of friendship, dedication and success.
2004 · BERLIN TASTING 2004 · Inspired by the 1976 judgment of Paris, and guided by his faith in Seña, Chadwick arranged a blind tasting in Berlin.
2005 - BIODYNAMIC FARMING · Led by his faith in Seña’s unique natural origin, Chadwick converted the vineyard to Biodynamic Farming.
2011 - SEÑA FIRST VERTICAL TOUR IN ASIA · Convinced about the ability to improve with age of our wines, Eduardo organized a Seña Vertical tour in Asia with Jeannie Cho Lee. In these events Seña benchmarked their wines with similar vintages of first growths, and requested the opinions of MWs and key Asian critics.
The Vineyard
Seña’s hillside vineyard extends over 42 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Syrah.
Colluvial soils on the valley’s slopes contain a variety of textures and stone proportions, resulting in a great diversity of well-drained gravel, rock and loam.
Climate: Seña’s location is a bit cooler than the traditional red wine regions, but still warms enough for the grapes to reach an excellent level of ripening.
The harvest takes place two weeks later than in the interior of the valley.
Biodynamic Farming
Motivated by our sustainable philosophy and even more importantly, by our desire to transcend time through a wine that has a unique personality, we adopted biodynamic agriculture more than seven years ago with the objective of reflecting a deep and authentic sense of origin.
BIODYNAMICS: THE MAGIC CIRCLE OF SELF-REGULATED ECO-SYSTEM.
As pioneers in Chile and around the world, we have learned to make wines that show their place of origin through the use of biodynamic agriculture. Convinced that soil nutrition is vital, we transform organic wastes from the vineyard and from animal manure on the property into compost, which we call the “source of life.”
We then use it to fertilize the soil and help the plants’ roots capture the nutrients from the ground and the grapes to deliver that essence to the wine.
Winemaking
To maximize quality, the fruit is handpicked exclusively in the morning and brought to the winery in 12 kg boxes. The grapes are then carefully selected on sorting tables and all extraneous plant material, leaves, and stems are removed to ensure fine fruit character in the final blend. The grapes are mostly fermented in stainless steel tanks at temperatures ranging from 24° to 30°C (75°–86°F), depending on the variety and seasonal conditions (microbiological load, and alcohol potential), to achieve the desired level of extraction. 6% of the must are fermented in first-use French oak barrels to increase the complexity of the blend. During fermentation, 3 pump overs are performed daily at 0.5 to 1.5 times the tank volume, in accordance with the degree of extraction desired.
Total maceration time range from 20 to 33 days for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Carmenere and 6 to 8 days for Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, depending on the development of each individual lot.
The new wine then racked to 100% French new oak barrels from a selection of the finest cooperages is aged for 22 months, during which time most of the malolactic fermentation takes place.
Seña 2012 is available in limited quantities at Tenzing.
