FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 78
Almaviva 2018
A Bordeaux baroness wanted to do in Chile what her father had done with Opus One in Napa, and in 2018, a warm, dry year its winemaker called very good all over the country, the result was a wine one critic called the most complex Almaviva to date.
- Maker
- Vina Almaviva
- By price in wine
- 97 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Vina Almaviva, a 50/50 joint venture of Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Concha y Toro
- Place
- Puente Alto, Maipo Valley, Chile, at about 650 meters
- Vintage
- 2018
- Blend
- 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenere, 6% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot
- Aging
- 18 months in new French oak, per the winery
- Alcohol
- 15%, as reported by one critic
- Winemaker
- Michel Friou
- First vintage
- 1996, harvested before the partnership was signed in 1997
- Name
- From Count Almaviva in Beaumarchais's play The Marriage of Figaro
A Chilean Opus One
Almaviva is a joint venture between Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the Bordeaux family company behind Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and the Chilean wine company Concha y Toro. The agreement was signed in 1997 by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and Eduardo Guilisasti Tagle, though the first vintage, 1996, was already in the cellar. As the winemaker Michel Friou puts it, the technical people worked faster than the lawyers.
Friou traces the idea to California. The baroness, he says, wanted to do something in Chile like her father had done when he made Opus One with Mondavi in 1979: bring the experience of French fine wine together with the conditions of a New World region. It was one of two high-profile Chilean joint ventures at the turn of the century, alongside the Mondavi-Chadwick project Sena.
The project was built on what Friou calls the chateau concept: one estate, one great wine. It started with 40 hectares in Puente Alto, in a 50-hectare site first planted in 1978, at about 650 meters above sea level, the highest point of the Maipo. Sources now put the productive vineyard at 60 or 65 hectares, and one adds 14 hectares of Carmenere in the Cachapoal Valley.
A count, a playwright and a Mapuche drum
The name sounds Spanish but comes from French theater. Count Almaviva is the nobleman in Beaumarchais's comedy The Marriage of Figaro, written in 1778 and first performed in Paris on April 27, 1784; Mozart turned it into an opera in 1786. The word on the label is written in Beaumarchais's own handwriting, taken from an original manuscript.
The other half of the label belongs to Chile. It shows a cultrun, the ceremonial drum of the Mapuche people, used in their rituals and ceremonies.
The wine was launched commercially in 1998 through the Bordeaux negociant network, and it was the first wine from outside Bordeaux sold that way. Early reactions were not all kind: one British critic wrote in 2000 that Almaviva and its new-wave peers were laughably overpriced. The same critic now calls it one of the New World's greatest reds.
The 2018
Friou calls 2018 a very good year all over Chile: normal winter rainfall, then a warmer, drier year that gave very positive conditions. Puente Alto is cooler in the growing season than other Chilean regions because of the Andes, with a 20-degree Celsius swing between day and night, and budding can come two weeks later than farther south. Friou says that means the end of ripening falls after the peak of the heat, which helps keep fruit and acidity.
The blend is 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenere, 6% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot, aged 18 months in new French oak. Carmenere has been part of Almaviva from the start, by accident: the first vintage had 19% of a grape everyone thought was Merlot. Petit Verdot first entered the blend in 2010.
Critics scored it among the best Almavivas. James Suckling gave it 98 points. Wine Advocate gave 97 and called it the most complex, nuanced and multifaceted version of Almaviva to date, a wine that should continue to impress into its third decade. Decanter gave 96 and called it a brilliant wine from Friou. A 2024 retrospective tasting of nine vintages from 1999 to 2021 gave it 94 and recorded 15% alcohol.
The winemakers
Almaviva's founding winemaker was Patrick Leon, followed by Tod Mostero from 2004 to 2007. Michel Friou, a Frenchman who had made wine in Chile at Vina Aquitania and Casa Lapostolle's Clos Apalta, took charge after that; one source dates his start to 2007, another to the 2008 vintage.
Under Friou the vineyard has been replanted at higher density, with 8,000 vines per hectare against the 2,000 to 4,000 of the original ungrafted plantings, and in recent years the team has gone back to planting ungrafted vines because they cope better with drought.
Price and production
Almaviva and its second wine, Epu, together average about 200,000 bottles a year, by one count. A quarter-century after its launch, three-figure prices for Almaviva are no longer shocking in Chile, and one 2024 account noted it was no longer even among the three most expensive Chilean wines.
In October 2026 a U.S. merchant listed a 750 ml bottle of the 2018 at $149.99, marked down from a list price of $194.99.
The numbers
- Blend
- 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenere, 6% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot
- Oak
- 18 months, new French oak
- Vineyard
- Puente Alto, about 650 m; 60 or 65 ha productive depending on the source
- Annual production
- About 200,000 bottles including the second wine Epu, by one count
- James Suckling
- 98
- Wine Advocate
- 97
- Decanter
- 96
Timeline
Beaumarchais writes The Marriage of Figaro, whose Count Almaviva gives the wine its name.
The Puente Alto site that becomes Almaviva's vineyard is first planted.
Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi create Opus One, the model for Almaviva.
The first vintage is harvested, before the partnership is signed.
Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and Eduardo Guilisasti Tagle sign the joint venture.
Almaviva is launched through the Bordeaux negociant network, the first non-Bordeaux wine sold that way.
Michel Friou takes charge of winemaking, by one account.
Petit Verdot enters the blend for the first time.
A warm, dry growing season; the 2018 is blended from 72% Cabernet Sauvignon and aged 18 months in new oak.
A U.S. critic tastes the 2018 in San Francisco and scores it 96.
A nine-vintage retrospective scores the 2018 94 points.
A U.S. merchant lists the 2018 at $149.99 a bottle.
The world in 2018
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy flies for the first time.
The Winter Olympics open in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, England.
Kim Jong Un crosses into South Korea to meet President Moon Jae-in.
The United States and North Korea hold a summit in Singapore.
France wins the World Cup in Russia.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | $150 | Asking price, not a saleRetail asking price for one 750 ml bottle at a U.S. merchant (list price shown as $194.99). Not a sale. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Almaviva 2018 is number 97 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (78 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Almaviva's first vintage was made before the joint venture was legally signed.
- The name on the label is in the playwright Beaumarchais's own handwriting.
- The label also carries a cultrun, a ceremonial drum of the Mapuche people.
- The Carmenere in the first vintage was thought to be Merlot.
- Almaviva was the first wine from outside Bordeaux sold through the Bordeaux negociant network.
- A critic who called it laughably overpriced in 2000 now calls it one of the New World's greatest reds.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026