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+--- Thread: Chilean wine (/thread-17019.html)
- avrohom - 07-30-2000
I have a friend from Chile. He insists that the Cabernet Sauvignon and/or the Merlot is superior to the French varieties. I tasted several, and noticed that the tanin levels were truly lower than most French counterparts.
He tried to explain that the true difference in Chilean wine depends on which valley it comes from.
My question is, I can't seam to taste any difference between the wine grown in different valleys. Can someone suggest several winesfrom different Chilean vallys that would make it easier for me to understand the subtlties?
- winoweenie - 07-30-2000
Avrohom, welcome to the board. Your friend is taking his nationalism a little past reality.The vines in France are ( or were ) the mother lode of cabernets and merlots. ALL of the vineyards in Chile are planted with some derivitave of these vines. The vines in Calif were planted with cuttings of the great chateaus of France. We reciprocated when in the late 19th century their vineyards were decimated by phylloxera ( Started in early 1870`s). The wine industry in Chile was elevated in class with the formation of many partnerships with great French AND American wineries that shgowed the existing wineries how to modernize and produce higher quality wines. As of today, IMHO, the Chilean wine industry is just in the early educational process ( Kindergarten) and has some marvelous techers from the college and graduate level. Again IMHO, the best wines are from the Maipo valley, BUT they sure `aint no Lafite Or Araujo. Winoweenie
- tomstevenson - 07-30-2000
What I think your Chilean friend is referring to is that all the vines growing in his country are ungrafted. The Cabernet and Merlot mother lode wineoweenie mentions dates back to 1851, which was long before Phylloxera, thus the vines were grown on their own roots. To this day Chile remains Phylloxera-free (we hope!) and because ungrafted vines have much longer productive lives, vineyards of 100 years and older are relatively common, as indeed they used to be in Europe prior to Phylloxera. It is reasonable for Chileans to argue that their ungrafted Cabernet and Merlot wines are closer to the Bordeaux wines of old than Bordeaux itself is today, thus these Chilean wines are superior. But as wineoweenie points out, Chile is not Lafite. It is interesting to taste "pure" Cabernet and Merlot, rather than the products of "hybrid" grafted vines, but as good as some Chilean wines are and although an improving standard can be virtually guaranteed, they are not superior to the best French examples. However, the best Chilean reds are superior to the bulk of standard Bordeaux AOC and much of the lesser wines in the other appellations.
The final restricting (or not) factor will be the intrinsic quality of Chile's myriad of terroirs and your Chilean friend has hit the nail on the head with his mention of various valleys. Many of the best Chilean wines have come from the Maipo valley and will continue to do so for some time to come. But the only reason why is because so many of the best wineries have their vineyards there. The Maipo valley is, however, one of the worst areas in Chile as far as potential wine quality is concerned. It is indicative of the fact that Chile established most of its vineyards in the wrong place for purely logistical reasons. In a country cut-off from the rest of the world by sea and mountains, and serviced by the most rudimentary of road systems, it is not surprising that more than one-third of the population still live in the capital of Santiago. It used to be much more than this, of course. When it is easier and cheaper to grow wine and food in close proximity to the vast majority of the population, why would the earliest settlers strike out for the back of beyond where cultivation and transporting the produce to the marketplace is much harder and more expensive? Particularly when Santiago is surrounded by such a lush valley. With an inexhaustible supply of irrigation water from the melting snows of the Andes, a perfect climate, no phylloxera, other pests or diseases, it was all too easy to harvest large crops of rich, healthy grapes. Trouble is Santiago is a bit like Modesto, surrounded by an all too lush central valley valley (comprising of Maipo, Curico, Maule and Rapel valleys). It is possible to take this analogy further because like California (same coast, same ocean, with the Andes and Sierra Nevada interchangeable!), there is a coastal range of hills, which represent the distant future for top-quality Chilean wine. It is in these hills that a cool maritime breeze tempers the fierce midday heat and sufficient rainfall permits viticulture without irrigation - if and when, that is, producers are content with moderate yields. At the moment just one area in this coastal range has started to open up, the Casablanca valley, and although that is where most of the excitement has been for the past five or six years, Casablanca merely nudges into the northern extremity of this future wine region. The greatest potential extends deeper into the hills and much further south, close to Concepcion. Ironically the only people with vines here are peasants who cannot afford irrigation (hence its name Secano or 'unirrigated') and grow PaÃs (thought to be a derivative of the Mission grape, for another parallel with California) for their own use.
As to the differences between the valleys, they exist, but apart from Casablanca, they are not that marked because you are essentially trying to discern differences between different parts of a central valley type situation.
Hope this helps.
Tom
- mrdutton - 08-06-2000
Tom,
Great information for me. I have added Chilean wines to my "wish to drink" list........
- winoweenie - 08-06-2000
Egads Tom!, You not only have expertise that`s mind-boggling, but you have magic in your prose....You`ve made MrDutton Re-Appear. This saves me from putting on my pleading hat and sending my E-Mail to MrD@mindspring. My minimalistic nature (plus typing skills of 14-words-per-minute) doesn`t allow the luxury of espousing any further than the question at hand. His friend said Chile`s wines were better than France`s ( No Exceptions ) and I answered as succintly as I could. The premise is so rediculous that I wouldn`t have bothered except that silence may have been construed as agreement. If there`s another post on the relative quality/price of specific vineyards in Chile, I`ll come back on board.Winoweenie WELCOME BACK ( I HOPE )MRD
- tomstevenson - 08-06-2000
Glad to tickle your fancy MrDutton, but wineoweenie's comments have ticked mine. Can either of you or anyone else point me towards a classic MrDutton post or response so I know what he's on about?
Cheers
Tom