2020 Tabali Talinay Pinot Noir Pai Limari Valley 750 ml

Retail: $90
$65	28% off	per bottle

quantity: 1

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97 pts

James Suckling

Light orange hue. I can’t believe this is pinot noir. Blind-tasting this, I’d guess Barolo for sure. So much effusive minerality with a decadent touch to the savory berries, iron, dried oranges and touches of caramel and soy sauce. Almost fruitless, but so savory and minerally, with great tension and fine tannins. Long and pure. From 1.13 hectares of pinot noir of massale selection without rootstocks. Vines are 12 years old. Around 40% of limestone. Fermented in small tanks with 40% whole bunches. Aged in French oak barrels (second, third and fourth use). 6,000 bottles made. Drink or hold.

95 pts

Vinous

The 2020 Pinot Noir Talinay Pai from Limarí was made with grapes from massal selections of Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin, 40% fermented with stems. It was aged for 12 months in French oak barrels sourced from famous areas such as Fontainebleau, Jupille, Bertrange, Tronçais and Allier. Garnet with a terracotta sheen in the glass. The aromatic profile presents sweet and sour cherry, damp earth and dried flower notes over a bed of nutmeg and cigar box. Pure silk in the mouth with intense flavor. The lactic flow and precise freshness create a taut, voluminous palate, underlined by a saline character that lingers at length. A rare beauty from Chile.

95+ pts

Wine Advocate

The 2020 Talinay Pai Pinot Noir is only the third vintage of their top Pinot Noir, produced with grapes from two massal selections from Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy that were planted ungrafted and with a very high density of 12,500 plants per hectare on a steep slope (30%) inside the Talinay estate vineyard. It's a unique 1.15 hectare of vines that were planted in 2012 on soils with a very high content of limestone and a place with a strong influence from the sea that delivers very mineral wines with freshness and grip and a special texture. It fermented with 40% full clusters and indigenous yeasts and matured in well-seasoned oak barrels for 12 months. It's only 12.3% alcohol and has very good freshness and acidity. It's a bit flinty and has notions of gun powder, a profile that comes from that place, an elegant and mysterious reduction that makes the wine layered, nuanced and complex. This is firm, energetic and light on its feel with lots of inner strength. Nobody would talk about a warm year drinking this wine. 6,000 bottles were filled in August 2022. I tasted a component of the 2022, which seems like a superb vintage, coming to you in two more years.

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Chilean Pinot at Its Best

Chile is known for extreme vineyards, but Talinay is one of the country’s absolute wildest. It’s steep, rugged, and flanked by cacti, and at first glance, you might wonder what possessed Tabalí to plant here.

But when you taste the 2020 Pai Pinot Noir, you’ll be glad they did.

Pai comes from a special 1.15-hectare plot in the acclaimed vineyard, and this vintage is perhaps the greatest Pinot Noir the winery—classified by Tim Atkin MW as a Chilean “First Growth”—has ever produced. And it’s a fascinating wine.

“I can’t believe this is Pinot Noir,” wrote James Suckling in his 97-point review. “Blind-tasting this, I’d guess Barolo for sure. So much effusive minerality with a decadent touch to the savory berries, iron, dried oranges and touches of caramel and soy sauce.” This is pure velvet elegance, streaked with minerality and suffused with uplifting acidity.

Located just west of the Atacama Desert—the driest nonpolar place on Earth—Limarí is among Chile’s northernmost wine regions. Located just seven miles from the ocean, the pristine, untamed terrain that surrounds the fog-draped Talinay Vineyard is part of the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

In 2012, Tabalí planted ungrafted massal selections—ones from older vineyards—from Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin at an extremely high density on a 30% slope. Six years later, Chile had one of its best vintages ever, one Wine Advocate rated 96 points.

Winemaker Felipe Müller East, a wunderkind with no shortage of accolades, fermented the Pai with 40% whole-clusters and native yeasts before giving it a year to rest in French oak. The result is a precise rendering of an extraordinary coastal terroir—one that’ll age easily for several years or more.

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2020 Tabali Talinay Pinot Noir Pai Limari Valley quantity: 1