Bicicleta Reserve - 2018 - Matias Rios

100% Pinot Noir, from vines farmed using sustainable agriculture and planted on poor, gravelly, red clay and granite soils. Harvested in March 2018: 80% of the grapes are harvested by hand, the rest are picked mechanically. The climate is temperate here, with hot days and cool nights, foggy mornings and natural irrigation thanks to the melting Andean snow. Vinification: a short maceration, followed by 9 months of maturation in stainless steel vats and oak barrels before blending.

Matias Rios is in charge of all vinifications at the Cono Sur estate, one of the most emblematic vineyards not only in Chile but the entire New World. Joining the estate in 2003, he would play a major role in its conversion to organic viticulture, as well as the overall sustainable, responsible and ecological development of the estate. In the same way Matias’s vinifications seem to gain in precision with every vintage, the pioneering advances at Cono Sur seem to be part of a natural evolution for an estate with an already rich history, intimately linked to that of Pinot Noir in Chile. In fact, the estate was founded around the first parcels of Pinot Noir in Chile, planted in the Colchagua Valley, a region already recognised in the 1960s as being ideal for the cultivation of the grape variety. Still today, while the estate produces many other cuvées, its Pinot remains a major focus. And don’t expect any imitations of another estate’s style, French or otherwise. As one of their mottos goes, "No family trees, no dusty bottles, just quality wine". Cono Sur's gamble has paid off: whether it’s an accessible or a more complex cuvée, these wines live up to their promises.