Sena 2020

From our sommelier team

A Chilean icon Bordeaux blend from Aconcagua, co-founded by Eduardo Chadwick and Robert Mondavi, best known for placing ahead of top Bordeaux and Napa wines in blind tastings such as the 2004 Berlin Tasting.

Seña was founded in 1995 as a joint venture between Eduardo Chadwick of Viña Errázuriz (founded 1870) and Napa Valley pioneer Robert Mondavi, who advised Chadwick that a Bordeaux-style blend was the route to establishing Chile's fine-wine credibility internationally. The two surveyed numerous sites before settling on a vineyard on the eastern side of the coastal Ocoa range in the Aconcagua Valley; the estate vineyard, roughly 45 hectares, was planted in 1997 to Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, with the first vintage sourced entirely from that site being 2005. When Constellation Brands acquired Robert Mondavi Corporation in 2004, Chadwick bought out the Mondavi share, and Seña has been wholly owned by the Chadwick family since 2005. The wine's reputation rests substantially on blind-tasting results: at the 2004 'Berlin Tasting,' Seña 2001 and its sister wine Viñedo Chadwick 2000 were rated by a panel of international critics ahead of a lineup of top Bordeaux, Napa and Tuscan wines, a result Chadwick has since repeated in follow-up tastings staged in other cities. As a Bordeaux-blend built on volcanic and colluvial soils with strong maritime and Andean diurnal influence, the wine is typically structured and cassis/graphite-toned in character, in the mold of the classic blend it was designed to emulate.