The Wine Insider: Chile

Each month in The Wine Insider we will highlight one of our destination wine regions and share some interesting tidbits of information about it's wines. Make sure to check out our Tips, Parings and Facts on the right hand side of the page.

Chile

Probably the most politically stable and traveler-friendly country in South America, Chile is about the same distance away as Europe, for most North American travelers. The time zone does a bit of a flip-flop with summer time since it's in the southern hemisphere, but Chile operates either on the same time as America's East Coast, or 2 hours ahead, so there's very little jet-lag. Further, since Chile operates on a "Spanish" time-scale, where lunch begins no earlier than 1:30 and dinner not before 9, for most Americans mealtimes hardly change at all!

It's true that fifteen years ago, when Peter Smith started visiting South America's wine regions, it was tough to find decent accommodation in the wine country. That's all changed however, and now there's a choice of lovely hotels everywhere you need them. Chilean food has evolved as tourism and wine has grown, and there's everything from gourmet French to Italian to Sushi available - and of course delicious traditional Chilean dishes. Chile also has some of the most unique and exciting seafood in the world - as you'll see at Santiago's Central Market if you stop in there for lunch with Don Augusto, as we do on every tour.

And the wine... Chile still supplies some of the most affordable wines in the world, but definitely can no longer be called just "cheap and cheerful". Since the early 90's, Chilean winemakers have steadily built on the fabulous terroir that blesses this country, modernizing their wineries and improving their cultivation techniques. Vineyards now carpet the slopes of the valleys to produce refined, elegant and complex wines that compete with top cuvees from around the world - and often command prices to match, albeit more reasonable than most other regions.

From the now famous Colchagua Valley, which contains the Apalta Valley that was put on the wine map by Lapostolle's launch of their ultra-premium Clos Apalta and its state-of-the-art winery, to exciting new boutique wineries producing top-notch Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir from the foggy, cool, coastal climate of Casablanca, San Antonio and Leyda, to the hillsides of Aconcagua, there are countless excellent wineries in beautiful valleys to be discovered. For the more adventurous, there are the southern regions of Maule and Bio Bio or even the desert mountains of Limari way to the north of Santiago, and of course plenty of add-on opportunities before or after your wine tour to Patagonia, Easter Island, Chile's lake region or even Antarctica.

5 Days In Chile

Chile... cheap and cheerful wines? Scary South America? Rustic accommodations and dodgy food? Agonizingly distant to reach, with horrible jet-lag? Of course, the answer is no to each of these... Chile is a truly amazing country, and one of the most fascinating places in the world for wine.

Rest assured that a trip to Chile will be an eye-opener, and a talking point with your friends for a long time to come - at least until they decide to follow your lead and explore this most dynamic of wine countries themselves!

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Chile Serving Tips

Chile produces a wide range of wines, which leaves many options for the way we treat it. Most whites are meant to be drunk young, and in general Chilean reds are not really made to age for decades, but these days there are numerous top-end reds that certainly have that potential. The public tends to follow a price-correlation when deciding how long to cellar a wine, and most Chilean reds come in the price bracket that people just don't consider worthy of aging.

Some top-notch Chilean wines really do have the potential to last for a decade at least - and in some cases it's really a shame to open them before they really have time to mellow and blossom. Having said that, the vast majority are made in a style that avoids hard tannins, so that even if they're too young to show their best, at least they are relatively easy to drink. Chilean winemakers have only recently even started to consider long aging of their wines themselves - in researching an article Peter wrote recently about ageability of Chilean wines, he was unable to find a single vineyard that had complete library stocks of more than ten years available to taste.

It's not always easy to know just how long to keep a wine of course. Ideally, you'll have room to store a case of each of your favorites so you can sample them at regular intervals and experience them at all stages of their life. For the majority of us, however, we have to rely on tasting notes from experts or consumers, which can be found on the websites like ours quite easily. This will tell you how a particular wine is likely to be drinking, then you can decide when to open that lone bottle tucked in the cooler, or be inspired to search for an aged wine you don't yet own.

Often we'll find that a wine is still "closed" when we open it (there's a conundrum for you!) - the tannins are still hanging on to the aroma and taste molecules so you can't get at them. Oxygen is your friend here; decanting the bottle for anything up to 24 hours can dramatically help bring out those aromatics and soften hard-edged tannins. If you don't have a decanter a pitcher can work - pour it back into the bottle when you're ready to serve so it doesn't look like "jug" wine! Just opening the bottle early has limited effect, as it's the relation between surface area and volume that makes the difference, and the neck of a bottle is pretty small with little access to oxygen.

Chile Food Pairing

Trying to say what food goes with Chilean wine is a never-ending question. This country produces such a wide range of wines, and styles, from such varied terroirs, that you can find a wine for practically any food. The current explosion of Sauvignon Blanc in the cool coastal climates of Casablanca and San Antonio Valleys, and the Leyda region (at the end of the San Antonio Valley) has produced wines that match perfectly with the abundant seafood of Chile's coast. Lively, mineral and yet bursting with ripe fruit, these wines go with anything from oysters to sea urchin, razor clam or any type of fish dish.

Chardonnay has been produced in Chile for a long time, but it's evolved a long way from the time it was emulating the oaky Chards of California and Australia back in the early 90's. Today's Chardonnays include wines from the cool, high slopes of the Alto Maipo between Santiago and the Andes mountains, as well as from Casablanca and other warmer regions, and range from crisp, citrusy wines that see no oak in their aging to complex, Burgundian-style wines raised in French oak that match richer dishes of chicken, white meat and cream sauces. Bordeaux varietals and blends have long been the mainstay of Chilean red wine, and are suited well to traditional Chilean beef and pork dishes, barbecues, stews etc. With well-made wines at every price point, Chile provides pretty much whatever you need for your dinner budget (often far less than your guests will think you spent for the quality they're enjoying). Carmenere, after a somewhat rocky start when it was first discovered (having been mistaken for Merlot for years) has become Chile's "unique" grape, with several wineries producing top-class wines from its peppery, spicy, fruit that takes its place beside (or blended with) the other Bordeaux grapes in food-pairing - particularly for grills, roast duck or lamb.

Another varietal that Chile has started to excel in is Syrah, both by itself and in blends, where it adds its characteristic spicy, cherry character to a variety of wines. Again, red meat and grills are of course the perfect match for most of these wines, as well as game and rich sauces.

Only recently has Pinot Noir started to make its mark in Chile. In the same cool-climate valleys that favor Sauvignon Blanc, Pinots are being produced that are refined and elegant Burgundian style that pairs with lamb perfectly, whilst others are sturdy and extracted and match up to richer dishes. Chile has begun to produce a range of innovative blends, using grapes that have not been matched elsewhere - Syrah, Merlot and Viognier with some Pinot Noir, for example - that open the options to pretty much any foods. This is perhaps the most interesting part of Chile's future; the country's growing conditions are so perfect that just about any style of wine can be produced, with almost infinite possibilities...

Chile Wine Facts

Chile's most "unique" story has to be that of Carmenere. Brought over to Chile from France in the last half of the 19th Century with the other Bordeaux varietals, Carmenere was almost totally abandoned in France as it was prone to disease in Bordeaux's cold, damp spring weather. In Chile, however, the vine thrived - Chile has possibly the most ideal growing conditions for grapes anywhere in the world. Although the grape thrived, it was forgotten... over the years it became known as a clone of Merlot, and was cultivated with that varietal. The problem is that Carmenere ripens after Merlot, so since it was being harvested at the same time, the Carmenere usually tended to give unripe, herbaceous flavors to the wine. In 1994, Jean-Michel Boursiquot, from Montpellier University's Oenology department, came to Chile and discovered the true identity of Carmenere. Three years later DNA testing confirmed his findings, and in 1998 Chile adopted Carmenere as an official varietal. Since then, as the nature of the grape has been understood, Carmenere has steadily gained respect in its own right, both as a single varietal and a component of blended wines, and is starting to take its place as a signature grape unique to Chile.

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