Valdivieso Caballo Loco Number Five

Delving deep into my cellar a while ago, the equivalent of vinous potholing, I glanced up to see, a few racks above my head, a bottle I didn’t immediately recognise. I adjusted my head torch (I might be making this bit up) to illuminate it better; I could see its slender neck protruded a little farther from the racks than the bottles which surrounded it, and while its black capsule was caked with dust I could just make out a scripted ‘V’ on the top.

V, for….Vendetta? I doubt it, but nothing else came to mind.

My curiosity appropriately piqued, I reached up and pulled it out.

Ah, Valdivieso. Caballo Loco. But I thought I had drunk all this years ago?

Just like Alexander Fleming when he returned to his mouldy petri-dish, that moment when William Conrad Röntgen noticed an unexpected effect of x-rays, or when Bilbo Baggins lay his hand on the Ring of Power (sorry, I just couldn’t do three scientists in a row), I had made a serendipitous discovery. Admittedly, the chance-finding of a long-lost cellar orphan might not have the same impact on human history as antibiotics, x-ray imaging or the key to the destruction of the dark lord Sauron, but it all depends on your point of view. On how bad your bout of pneumonia is, perhaps. Or how close you live to Mordor.

I looked back at my old notes and I saw that I wrote, in 2004, that this wine would improve for two or three years, and would then drink for much longer, but I didn’t nail my colours to the mast with a more precisely defined drinking window. Was another nineteen years possible? Only one way to find out. I grabbed the bottle and added it to my ‘drink now’ rack.

Twenty years ago Caballo Loco was the flagship cuvée of Valdivieso, which grew from Champagne Valdivieso SA, South America’s first sparkling wine producer (established 1879). First released in the mid-1990s, Caballo Loco was in essence a Bordeaux-style blend dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon (although it was rumoured other varieties, including Syrah and Pinot Noir, might have been included), but it was its novel solera-style composition which made it stand out. Never vintage-dated, Caballo Loco Number 1 was a blend of early-1990s vintages, while subsequent releases were a 50% mix of the most recent vintage (or possibly the most recent two vintages), plus 50% from the previous release, drawn from the multi-vintage solera.

I confess I don’t know the base vintage for Caballo Loco Number 5. But given that we have moved on four ‘editions’, it must be a blend of at least half a dozen vintages

In the glass the Caballo Loco Number 5 from Valdivieso initially impresses with a rich colour, undeniably maturing in terms of hue, but with a great depth of concentrated pigment. The nose starts off in a quite curious fashion, an unusual melding of pencil eraser and hung game, unexpected but actually more pleasant than it perhaps sounds. With time, though, it reveals notes of sweet and perhaps rather simple blackcurrant pastille with bay leaf and thyme, ultimately touched with notes of dark chocolate and black pepper. The palate is where the wine’s age shows most plainly though, beginning with a rather solid substance, it moves into a blocky and unyielding style in the middle, with plenty of grip, even some unresolved tannin, but the aromatics of the nose steadfastly refuse to engage here. The palate feels as it has given up, is moribund, despite the evident frame of structure that persists. It finishes short. It is a shame, as the colour and scented aromatic profile held some promise, and I have had success with aged Chilean reds before, as well as long-forgotten cellar orphans. Just not this time. Drink up if you have any (which I doubt). The alcohol is 14% on the label. 86/100

Hopefully I won’t find any more long-forgotten bottles of Caballo Loco Number 5, although I do know there are several bottles of Clos des Briords, vintage 2014, from Domaine de la Pépière, currently lost in the depths of the cellar. Will I find them in time to pop the cork as they hit ten years of age next year? It looks like I will soon be donning my potholing head torch once again. (24/7/23)

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