Little-known Chilean wines

An instructive tasting of wines from very old, free-standing vines. These neglected vines in remote valleys have fortunately been cultivated by winegrowers who have handed them down from generation to generation, in some cases for over 400 years, to make wine for everyday consumption and to produce table grapes. Today, some 30 winegrowers are trying to make the most of these terroirs to produce unique wines, using unchanging working methods (ploughing with horses, pressing grapes with the feet). These are small estates, selling only a few thousand bottles, and most of their wines have yet to find an export market. Here's an overview of the wines presented in Paris by their owners at the initiative of ProChile, a dynamic Chilean export promotion agency.

David Marcel (Aupa & Maitia), a French oenologist, supports the peasant agriculture of local winegrowers and works in an organic and natural spirit. He offers a simple, fruity cuvée made from a blend of pais and carignan, as well as two other cuvées: Maitia, 100% Carignan, very digestible and not rustic, fine and light. Itzal, 100% Pais, is a cuvée with a more Burgundian approach and fine, light acidity.

Diego Morales (Bisogno Wines "El Perla") offers a 100% Semillon cuvée from the Maule valley. The vines, which are almost a hundred years old, are gobelet trained. Today, only 950 hectares of this historic grape variety remain, whereas in the 1960s, the area planted to this grape was over 30,000 hectares. The granite terroir of the Cauquenenes area produces a white wine that is highly aromatic on the nose, with exuberant notes of white flowers, and fairly light and very mineral on the palate.

Joel Neira (Brutall) uses the traditional method to produce a sparkling wine made from 100% Muscat d'Alexandrie grapes. The wine delivers fine bitters and a saline balance thanks to the vineyard's location 400 m from the sea. Freshness is delicately preserved with 0.5g of sugar per liter.

Natalia Poblete (Moretta Wines), a trained oenologist, has produced "Carigno del Maule", a cuvée of pure Carignan, which is a success: noble, delicate fruit, with blackberry and raspberry notes, velvety tannins and the grape variety's lack of rusticity, no wood markings.

Renan Cancino (El Viejo Almacén de Sauzal) produces two cuvées. Carinena, a 100% carignan offering velvety sap and concentrated ripe fruit, and another cuvée made from 100% native Pais grapes, which is light, fine, fruity and delicate, with a long finish.

José Luis Gomez Bastias offers two cuvées of pure Pais: Tinaja 2015, with tight tannins and an expressive palate of blackcurrant berries and grape stalks. Cuvée Matorral 2015, with its fine acidity and Burgundy-like aromas of macerated cherry. Vinified in amphora, it produces just 850 bottles. The winemaker also produces a fragrant, sappy and fine 2017 vintage orange wine.

Fransesco Marone Cinzano (Erasmo) makes his Late Harvest cuvée from Torontel grapes alone. It is a passerillage wine, with 180g of residual sugar per liter. Very creamy on the palate, it retains good acidity and offers rich honey and dried fruit notes.

Constanza Schwaderer (Schwaderer Wines) vinifies a 100% Pais sparkling cuvée with a beautiful salmon-pink color, which, thanks to its granite soil, preserves freshness and mineral tension. A gourmet sparkling wine the likes of which we'd like to drink more often in France!

Juan José Ledesma (Vinas Inéditas) produces "Cerruco", a highly original 100% Muscat d'Alexandrie that explodes with flavor on the palate! A firework of floral and fruity aromas and scents, with a long finish.

Cristian Lagos (Trifulca) offers his 100% Cinsault cuvée from granite terroirs: the nose seems very fine, the palate greedy and rich. The grape variety appears sublimated. No equivalent in France!

CONTACTS

AGENCE LINKA INTERNATIONAL | +33 1 85 08 70 07

www.prochile.gob.cl

Selection of Chilean wines in France:

La Faute au Vin

Alvaro Yanez, wine merchant

83 rue du Cherche-Midi - 75006 Paris

01 53 71 95 73

lafauteauvin@orange.fr