Chilean wine

[tomstevenson]

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 País (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