Cash in on Chile

Chilean wine first made its name in the 1980s and 1990s with a series of wines made from the two classic Bordeaux grapes: cabernet sauvignon and merlot. The wines had the all of the plum, blackcurrant and mint flavours that we look for from these varieties. For many who found Bordeaux a little too lean and tannic, it was an improvement on the original.

Even better, they were much cheaper. Since then, Chile has continued to grow in our affections and now commands more than 20 per cent of the market in Ireland. This makes us one of its most important customers; for many producers we are among their top five clients despite our relatively small population.

At the same time, Chile has expanded its repertoire to include wines made from virtually all of the well-known grape varieties and a few more besides. Possibly they have been a little too eager to please at times, with every region trying to produce every grape in every price category. But as Carmen winemaker Sebastien Labbé commented at the recent Irish Times wine tasting, despite having a wine-making tradition going back 500 years, they have been on a voyage of discovery for the past two decades, opening up new regions and trying to discover what works best in the existing vineyards.

Chile has certainly come a long way with the range of wines on offer. Some of the newer, cooler areas produce pretty good sauvignon blancs. The Chileans argue it is halfway between the vibrant aromatic New Zealand style and the cooler green fruits of the Loire Valley. I find it has a style all of its own with refreshing tropical fruits.

As an alternative, there is no shortage of well-made unoaked chardonnay. Chile is the only country in the world that can produce inexpensive pinot noir, particularly in the cooler regions of Casablanca, Leyda and Bio-Bio.

There is also some very good syrah from warmer regions such as Elqui and Limari, and their unique grape variety, carmenère.

The range may have increased but the difficulty has always been getting the consumer to pay a little more for these wines. Chile certainly has no problem producing cheap and cheerful wines at about €8 a bottle. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, they exported a steady stream of well-made but unexciting wines, usually the result of over-cropping the vines. But of that €8, the winery is likely to receive about €1.30, not a price that enables anyone to create an interesting wine.

Chile can certainly produce quality; at the top level, Bordeaux blends such as Casa Real, Senya, Almamaviva, Viñedos Chadwick and others regularly perform very well against their rivals from Bordeaux and other regions. This may make for good newspaper headlines, but where Chile really needs to succeed is in the mid-price range of €10-€15.

Because of our extortionate taxes, this offers a winemaker between €2 and €3.50, enough money to make something really interesting that we can afford to drink on a regular basis.

For the purposes of this article, I tasted some 20 cabernet sauvignons, the grape variety that really put Chile on the world stage. It included most of the major brands found on your supermarket shelf. As mentioned above, there are some seriously expensive wines made from cabernet sauvignon and cabernet blends. The Maipo Valley, lying just south of the capital Santiago, has always had a high reputation for its cabernet sauvignon. Many of the old bodegas are located here, established by wealthy landowners in the late 19th century. As the phylloxera pest never reached Chile, it has some of the oldest ungrafted vines in the world. The wines here can be very serious indeed; firm structured and full of concentrated blackcurrant fruits.

Maipo is not the only region with a reputation for cabernet sauvignon – Aconcagua, just north of Santiago, produces very elegant wines, and Colchagua, best-known for merlot, also makes some succulent cabernets.

The wines I tasted all fell into that €10-€15 range. There was a good consistency throughout the wines, although a few had an unattractive combination of green tannins and new oak. But overall, they were certainly a lot better than those selling for €8 or less, and included a few delicious, balanced ripe wines with a bit of structure and a classic dry Cabernet finish.

Maybe we should consider paying a little more for our Chilean cabernets?