The gardens at Errazuriz

Chile - Picking the grapes by hand

Exploring the vineyards by horse

The Vineyards of Chile

21 February - 4 March 2011

About the time that A&C started back in late 1986, a friend brought to a ‘bring a strange bottle of wine’ party, a Chilean Cabernet. It was the first Chilean wine that we had seen, and it had that strong character and vibrancy that has won Chile so many friends.

It was surprising that it was so good, many of the wines at that time had a strange flavour that came from using barrels made from a local beech rather than oak. The vineyards were a hot muddle of grape varieties, some unknown, and the wineries, mostly clustered around Santiago, were very ….. ‘traditional’.

So much has changed that it is hard to know where to start. Chile is 2700 miles long and sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific. The vineyards used to be almost entirely on the hot, Central Valley floor. It has grown enormously, but more importantly, it has spread to cooler, more interesting regions; north and east into the Andes foothills, west to the coast area, and south, even as far as Patagonia.

Winemakers are extremely excited about what this can bring. This is ‘regionality’ in the making and they are not making the mistakes that others made before them. Pinot is going in near the coast; Syrah on high rocky terraces; Chardonnay on a cool plateau with limey soil. To say the results are encouraging is a huge understatement, Chile is buzzing, rather like Australia was in the late 80s. The difference is that things are moving even faster here. This tour offers the chance to meet the key winemakers at this critical time for the Chilean wine industry.

We visit new rising star regions starting in the north, high in the remote Elqui Valley where Falernia has proved that great Syrah can be made. The night sky here has about the highest luminosity in the world. Falernia has built a fantastic observatory here, where we are invited to dinner and to star gaze.

Next is Limari with its fabled terroir. Our visits are to the emerging stars, Ocho Tierras, Tabali and Tamaya. We take over a hacienda for our exclusive use for our stay here.

Errazuriz in Aconcagua Valley was at the forefront of quality at the beginning and a tasting of their top wines over lunch will leave us in now doubt that they still are. Former Errazuriz winemaker Ed Flaherty now runs Tarapaca and we expect great things here too. De Martino have produced a fascinating terroir study of all Chilean vineyard region, we taste fine regional-varietal wines here.

After Casablanca, Chile’s original cool climate region, we visit San Antonio one of its newest. Here at Casa Marin, Maria Luz Marin makes a speciality of Sauvignon Blanc, in fact it is already legendary. We see this pattern repeated, at Viu Manent, we taste sensational Viognier, and at Cono Sur, they have set themselves the hardest task, making great Pinot. We also taste their aromatic whites from Bio Bio.

In Colchagua, we are spoilt for choice but we cannot come here without visiting Montes in Apalta. We remember when the wines were made in a warehouse, now they have one of the most amazing wineries in the world, built on the principles of Feng Shui and the wines are outstanding.

We meet genius winemaker Alvaro Espinoza, who we have met many times at his micro ranch ‘Antiyal’, and now we see how he applies his biodynamic concepts to the large scale at Emiliana. After this we lunch at Valdivieso’s beautiful vineyard. We continue south into Maule. Here we stay for a couple of nights in a charming vineyard guest house and meet the stars of the area, Gilmore and J. Bouchon. We finish here; there are some vineyards south of here, but no visitable wineries. We return to Santiago from Talco by train.

If you travelled with us to Chile on one of our early Chile tours, even the ‘cutting edge’ wineries we visited were fairly rudimentary. Largely their ambition seemed to be to make good value, solid wines. Come and see the difference now and taste memorable, world-class wines!

The Wine Guide is one of our A&C team. This will be a small party tour.