Bold, elegant, and endlessly layered. The 2016 Vik blends 76% Cabernet Sauvignon and 24% Cabernet Franc into a seamless expression of Chile’s Millahue terroir. Deep blackberry, fresh herbs, and graphite aromas lead into a refined palate with sleek tannins and a finish that lingers for ages. Aged for 24 months in French oak, this vintage shows both power and precision—drinking beautifully now, with decades of potential ahead.

JamesSuckling.com | JS 96
Published: Apr 24, 2023

This is a superb red with blackberry, asphalt and fresh herbs, like thyme and bay leaf. The palate is so refined and polished with linear and fine tannins that run the length of the wine. The finish goes on for a very, very long time. 76% cabernet sauvignon and 24% cabernet franc. Great wine. Beautiful now but will go on for decades.

Decanter | D 93
Drink: 2021-2028

Cool, elegant, crisp acidity to match the sweet and ripe, dark fruit character on the palate. A very successful marriage of savoury elements, good acidity and great purity of fruit. Complex and layered. Very nice tannins and oak and has potential to age very well. 

The Wine Advocate | RP 92
Published: Apr 06, 2023
Drink: 2022-2028

I tasted some back vintages I had not tasted, like the 2016 Vik, from the coldest year in recent times. It has aromatics similar to those I found in the 2018, also a cooler year. It was produced with Cabernet Sauvignon and 24% Cabernet Franc, and they still used a high percentage of new barrels, 65% then, which has been gradually reduced. It has 14.1% alcohol and comes through as quite aromatic and expressive, lush and full-bodied, with abundant, fine-gained, slightly dusty tannins. 28,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2018, and it's still quite young and unevolved.

Vik is the Nordic surname of the owners of a very modern property and winery in Cachapoal where they planted 327 hectares of high-density vineyards. These are ripe, generous and oaky wines with some residual sugar, but somehow most of the reds finished dry and I only noticed a little sweetness in one of them.

Vikwine.com

VARIETIES
74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Cabernet Franc.

ORIGIN
Millahue, Cachapoal valley.

SOIL
Deep, porous decomposed granitic soil with good drainage.

CLIMATE
Temperate Mediterranean climate with a marine inuence which moderates maximum temperatures.

AGING
24 months in French oak barrels.

TASTING NOTES
An inspired spring and a patient summer with average temperatures nurtured the rapid ripening of tannins in the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cabernet Franc. Fall ushered in an early but joyful and expectant harvest. Both varieties were perfect: tannins were crisp, tense, and nervous while also gently dynamic, accompanied by elevated fruit character marked by delicate aromas which lightly dance, seduce and enchant.
After a 24-month barrel aging, the wine was bottled. This vintage departs from its predecessors by blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc exclusively. The maturity of the Cabernet Franc vines, apparent in the fruit’s new-found authority, delightful minerality and acidity, allowed for more prominence in the blend accounting for almost a quarter of the assemblage. Cabernet Sauvignon, at 76% of the blend, provides the wine’s long and dynamic structure and the nearly innite nish. This vintage is precise, subtle, and elegant, delivering a story, whose chapters are visible in pours and pages turned in each sip. The story shares passionately the virtues of this terroir, the characteristics of the vintage as well as the entire team’s endeavors for quality and respect for nature.
Food pairing: Wagyu steak, herb rubbed roasted lamb ribs.
Serving temperature: 16º - 18ºC.