South America
The wine producing nations of South America are making great strides in improving the quality of their product so why not try them on a wine tour, in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay and find out. The wines of Chile are the most predominant on the foreign market, but Chile’s larger neighbor, Argentina, is also making an impact.
The traditional Chilean vineyard was the Maipo, in the hot central valley around Santiago. Recently there has been a rapid expansion to the south, to the north, towards the coast and up the foothills of the Andes. Chile has some amazing advantages, most famously it is phylloxera free and those old vineyards, mostly of Cabernet and Carmenere, are ungrafted. Lately Chile has shown great success with Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay in coastal areas such as Casablanca, and with Syrah too. The benign climate makes organic viticulture relatively easy and it is certainly extremely successful with quite a few truly superb organic and ‘biodynamic’ wines being made.
Even more dramatic has been the emergence of Argentina as a quality producer. Only a few years ago Argentina, though unknown internationally, had a vineyard some 5 times the size of Chile’s. In theory it was the sleeping giant of the new world, although in practice there was a huge job to be done in modernising the wineries and nearly completely replanting the vineyard. This job is well underway and with the opening of high altitude, high quality regions such as Tupungato, Argentina is becoming a serious player.
There is also a small amount of wine coming out of Uruguay. This is fairly high quality and fairly ‘european’ in style. The red is mainly made from from the Tannat variety, but there is the full range of varieties, red and white. Brazil also makes a reasonable amount of wine but little or none is exported. The quality is actually OK. The main wine region is down on the Uruguayan border. There is also a little wine made in Peru but we haven’t tried any, yet!
There was an Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tour to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in February which is repeated annually. For 2010 there is also a wine holiday dedicated only to the wonderful vineyards of chile and our annual Wine Cruise will also feature many South American fine wines.
See Chile, Argentina & Uruguay-Wines Tasted 2009
Galapagos Islands & South American Wines Cruise
28 January - 5 February 2011
Chile, Argentina & Uruguay
7 - 19 February 2011
The Vineyards of Chile
21 February - 4 March 2011
Arblaster & Clarke Wine Fair
4 March 2010
