Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention

Chile’s climate and topography are among the most spectacular in the world, but do its wines match the geography? Chris Losh spent a week west of the Andes with some of the UK’s finest sommeliers to explore the country’s diversity.

A sommelier friend of mine returned from a visit to Chile 10 years ago and dreamily described it as being ‘God’s own vineyard’. I chuckled, dismissed it as jet-lagged hyperbole and thought nothing more of it. Then in January 2002 I left a cold, grey London, landed in late summer in Santiago and bored everyone rigid on my return with how spectacular the country was – how magnificent the climate, how breathtaking the views, how exciting the wine potential.

Chile has that effect on people. However much you read about it, nothing can quite prepare you for the uniqueness of what must be the most oddly shaped country in the world. If it were in the northern hemisphere, it would run from Stockholm to Sudan – and be no wider than Wales.

Obviously, this makes things interesting climatically. The southern edge is all penguins, glaciers and howling winds that stunt the trees like bonsai; the northern limits are the world’s driest desert, the smoky umber desiccation of the Atacama. In between are the Lake District – a chocolate-box-beautiful region of Alpine hills and deep lakes that is, unsurprisingly, home to lots of ex-pat Germans and Austrians; and the fertile, neo-Mediterranean loveliness around the capital, Santiago.

Chile is, in short, not so much God’s own vineyard as the place where He keeps all His bits of spare nature – locked into a celestial store cupboard that’s guarded by 20,000 feet of Andes to the east, and the crashing of the Pacific to the west.

Good for the camera, sure. Now can you just imagine what that versatility can do for wine production?

Vines have been grown in Chile for close on 500 years: the conquistadores brought them over and planted them to make communion wine. The table wine industry, though, really began in the mid-1800s, when wealthy industrialists imported French varietals (mostly from Bordeaux) to establish vineyards as a status symbol. Some of Chile’s best-known names date from this period – Concha y Toro, Errazuriz, Santa Rita, Cousiño Macul, to name but a few – giving them a heritage to rival many of Europe’s finest.

Chile is not so much God’s own vineyard as the

place where He keeps all His bits of spare nature

To say that the vines found Chile’s climate to their liking is an understatement. It is, in many ways, the perfect place to grow grapes and must have been something of a culture shock for Cabernet and Merlot vines used to struggling to ripeness either side of the Gironde.

Unbroken sunshine is guaranteed pretty much throughout the growing season, with rain rarely a factor for anything other than some of the latest-ripening varietals. The heat is tempered by breezes funnelling in off the sea, or down off the mountains, while water is reliably supplied every year by meltwater from the giant icebox of the Andes. There are no diseases and no phylloxera.

The modern industry probably started in the late 1970s, when stainless steel in the wineries revolutionised their ability to make the most of the fruit that was coming in from the vineyards, and Miguel Torres bought a vineyard in the country. He blazed a trail for others to follow, and by the mid-1990s you had more chance of running into a French winery owner in Santiago than in Paris. Chile’s wine industry wasn’t just acceptable – it was positively hot!

The past 10 years, though, have seen arguably the most important shift of all: the move towards more marginal sites. Where before three or four Denominations of Origin used to cover most of the decent wine that was made in the country, now new regions are springing up all the time.

It was to catch up with developments like this, and to show just how diverse Chile has become, that the Sommeliers Summit took place. Ten of Britain’s finest sommeliers bumped around some of the main regions in a bus for a week. They had seminars on everything from Carmenère and Cabernet to organics and cool-climate whites. They tasted and spat until their jaws ached, wore their ponchos with pride and learned to love razor clams covered in cheese.

Their findings can be found in detail on the Imbibe website.