Substitute wines

[Emily Fagence]

I am doing an assignment at college, and I need to come up with 5 substitute wines for:
Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chilean wine. It was suggested that we went for the same grape variety and similar tastes. Can you please help, I know nothing about wines. If you could come up with some names, I can look them up!
Thanks a lot! Em

[Innkeeper]

Hi Emily, and welcome to the Wine Board. Although we speak pretty much the same language, sometimes have problems understanding questions from the U.K. and the Land of Oz. By substitute, do you mean wines of equal or close to equal quality? Do they have to be Chilean and/or cabernet, or/and cabernet and/or Chilean?

[Emily Fagence]

I mean wines that are of similar quality or wines that are close to the quality of Don Melchor. They do not have to be Chilean or a cabernet sauvignon, however if you could suggest a couple that are a cabernet sauvignon that would be great. Thanks

[Innkeeper]

Sorry you haven't received an answer yet Emily. I'll bring this up to the top of the thread for you. Am not familiar with Don Melcher.

[Drew]

Emily, quality is a subjective term ,and as such, I'll try to give a good answer. Don Melchor is the flagship bottling of Concha y Toro Cabernet. Usually scoring in the low 90's for quality and selling between $25 and $40 per bottle. The wine has a pronounced mint element to the richness of the fruit which I find distinctive. I would think that you would compare this wine to others showing similar traits eg.

Niebaum-Coppola
Chappellet

Go to http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Spectator/notes and use their search engine to find similar wines. FWIW, I would think it would be hard to compare wines not sampled.

Drew