The owner and winemaker at El Escorial is a very entertaining chap, and bursting with enthusiasm about his high altitude Port. His Chilean accent while speaking in his native Spanish is very pronounced and I will freely admit that I missed about 30% of what he said (luckily his subsequent emails filled in the gaps later). Rodrigo Espinosa Carey (note the Irish lineage) is a bit of an Anglophile and pays homage to the seafaring drinking habits of 17th and 18th century Brits with his Port-style creation. I know we cannot call it Port and he doesn’t on the bottle, but this is essentially a high altitude Port.
He told us that Port-style wines were very popular in the sixties when he was growing up and from the age of six, he was allowed a few sips on a Sunday with the family. You can imagine he got a taste for it and now proudly produces fortified wines of his own from high altitude plots in the Aconcagua wine region. The mention of high altitude brings me to the video below. The vineyards shown are up towards the Argentine border and as you can see are quite extreme and grow at a lofty 1,600 meters (around 5300 feet) above sea level. These grapes are used in the “Cornisa” line and for his vintage port-style.
So, back to the fortified wine. Made from Syrah as he doesn’t have any Touriga Nacional (but may plant some) Rodrigo produces 3 styles; a Ruby, a Tawny, and a Vintage. We tasted only the Tawny while we were at the winery and really liked it so we took one home that we will open very soon. Rodrigo wanted his Tawny to follow the classic Portuguese production process as closely as possible. To produce the bottle you see below the grapes are manually-harvested and only good condition, healthy bunches are selected from the vine. A cold-soaking period is given to the lightly crushed grapes, followed by temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel.
The fermentation is halted by the introduction of spirit as it is in Portugal. At El Escorial, the timing of this addition was investigated extensively as they wanted to make a house style as similar as possible to the Portuguese”original”. The Tawny homage spends 40 months in used French oak, gently oxidizing to give us a 17.5% alcohol wine which shows dried fruits, nuts, raisins, and ripe plum plus a dose of Christmas cake, lovely with strong cheeses we think. The name of the line of fortified wines is Sypor – T as you can see below, Sy for Syrah, por – T obviously for Port-style but we have no idea why the hyphen? I didn’t ask either – maybe you guys can.
Rodrigo is the grandson of the original owner Santiago Carey who produced wine, brandy, and fruit for export during the interwar years. The estate fell into some disuse and it wasn’t until 2009 that Rodrigo decided to rescue his heritage and make serious efforts in modern winemaking. 2013 heralded the first harvest and after 4 years in the making, his first Syport was released in 2018. In 2017 the high altitude “Cornisa” line was launched. So while this winery has a long history the products are very new.
The winery has taken things very seriously in the planning with around 150 tests made. Experiments using different grape varieties, with different spirits added to halt fermentation, testing with or without skins, and with fortification made at different times. The results of all these experiments have defined the exact way the fortified wine is now produced and has ensured great reviews from critics. The winery is well worth a visit, you can get up close and personal in production areas and enjoy a great tasting of high altitude port and other wines in the portfolio in the classic style cellar or sunny patio or wine store. Rodrigo is very communicative and very happy to show you around. Feel free to ask us about other places to combine with this one while you are touring the Aconcagua wine region.
