Mon 18 Aug 2008
The Miquel Torres Santa Digna Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé 2007, from Chile’s Central Valley, is one of the best rosé wines I have tasted all summer. Tasted, hell, we gladly drank the whole bottle, over several nights of cooking dinner. The wine, made from 
100 percent cabernet sauvignon grapes, displays more personality than most rosés, being uncommonly spicy, unusually flavorful and almost unfairly robust. It remains, however, a true rosé in terms of its brilliant cerise shading into red plum color, its beguiling scents and flavors of strawberry, raspberry and cherry-berry with touches of dried fruit as well as ripe. Loads of limestone lend some seriousness to the enterprise, while crisp acid and a hint of orange rind make it lively. Drink now into 2009. About $10 and a Great Bargain.
The winery is an outpost in Chile of Spain’s well-known Torres family of wine-producers. Visit their website here.
Imported by Dreyfus, Ashby & Co., New York.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:41 am
“Loads of limestone lend some seriously to the enterprise”.
Maybe it was just too early. Or too late.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:02 am
oops, I’ll correct that. thnx.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Great little wine and, as you said, an excellent bargain. Who knew cab sav would make such a great rose?
I was curious about the Spanish pronunciation of “Digna”. In Italian it would be “DEEN-ya”, but Spanish doesn’t usually put a g and an n next to each other and going by strict rules it would be “DIGG-na”. I asked a few Spanish speaking persons who sort of blinked at it and said it wasn’t a Spanish word.
Since it’s a Saint (and there’s two–one martyred in Rome and one in Cordoba), I had to go back to the Latin origins, where classic pronunciation follows the Italian rules for gn and not the hard g and n that we’re used to mispronouncing with words like magnum and regnum.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Benito, you are, as always, a gentleman and a scholar. blessings on you.