Chile goes long on ‘personality’ at annual London tasting

By Andrew Catchpole

Published: 01 April, 2022

If the annual Wines from Chile tasting yesterday (31 March) is a fair yardstick of where the country is at, then this is an industry now more Citroën DS than Volvo estate, with sometimes quirky but increasingly successful and captivating innovation to the fore.

Merlot may seem an odd starting point to emphasise such evolution, given the connotations of ‘safe’, international, affordable list filler. But Aresti’s Trisquel Series Altitud 1,245[m] Merlot 2019 from Curicó – which featured in a Wines with Personality masterclass – was a revelation; refreshing and angular, herby and yet ripe, with all the vibrancy of such high altitude Andean viticulture.

But this was just one example of the message being pushed – namely, as masterclass host Alistair Cooper MW put it, that “Chile needed a lot more innovation, and that is happening right now”. And the tasting hall was peppered with examples of ‘alternative’ and emerging varieties, blends and styles, with focus flights including The Beautiful South, highlighting up-and-coming regions such as “Maule, Itata, Malleco and Beyond…”.

The list could run to some length, but wines such as Carmen’s Colchagua-produced Florillón, the name a play on Semillon and the flor under which it aged for a year, and a perfumed Touriga Nacional from Los Boldos in Cachapoal Andes were good examples of the new face of Chile. As were a zesty new Bio Bio Montgras Riesling, presented by winemaker Adolfo Hurtado, along with blends from the likes of Las Veletas, which offered up a Grenache-Carignan-Mourvedre and a Petit Verdot-Cabernet Franc, both from Loncomilla Valley in Maule, with both showing purity and fresh focus.

Back at the masterclass (the third of the day), expanding on his theme of Wines of Personality, Cooper insisted: “Things [in Chile] are changing at such a spectacular rate.”

He argued that the human winemaker element does play an important part in the expression of terroir and never more so “when you are pioneering new areas” – as has been happening in Chile.

This pioneering includes identifying new coastal and high-altitude sites and expanding viticulture to the extremes, both north on the edge of the dry Atacama Desert and to the far more verdant southerly reaches of this long thin country.

“If you are the first person planting in an area, then a lot of that has to come from the human element and that personality the winemaker is putting onto the wines, so that is why I’m linking personality and terroir,” he added.

This, Cooper said, is what has been driving much of the innovation, along with renewed emphasis on more hands-off and gentler winemaking in more traditional and ‘rediscovered’ areas.

Finally, in terms of new varieties, one of the main reasons the pace isn’t going even faster is simply the length of time it takes to process vines through quarantine, planting and then waiting for enough maturity to start producing the first vintage of wine.

Chile is clearly a country at an exciting juncture innovation-wise, and, on the evidence of the Wines from Chile tasting, its winemakers are thirsty for more.

Printer friendly version