Early Days
Wine production first started in Chile in the middle of the 16th Century. Most believe grapes were first brought over by Spanish missionaries after the Spanish conquest to be used for Eucharist. In fact, there is record of Pedro de Valdivia, the first royal governor of colonial Chile, requesting vines from the King to evangelize Chile in 1545. Pais (Listan Prieto) was most likely the first wine grape to be brought by the Spanish. Then, there’s also record of Rodrigo de Araya in 1555 as the first Spanish Conquistador to begin agriculture in Chile, including viticulture.
In addition to Pais, varieties like Moscatel de Alejandria, Albilla (Palomino Fino), and Mollar (Negramoll) were the first to be used in Chile and all of Spanish Colonial America. They eventually gained different names in each region over time and started to cross with each other to create criolla grapes like Torontel. Some also mutated like Chile’s only exclusively native variety Tamarugal.
It should also be noted that indigenous tribes took over some of the Spanish vineyards and made a semi-fermented sweet wine called Chicha, which is still popular today during Fiestas Patrias, a Chilean national celebration in September. Chicha has been popular among many natives in South America for as long as 7,000 years, but they had used other fruits and vegetables prior to the arrival of wine grapes.
Eventually, colonial Chilean wine became world renowned as a cheap export wine in the 17th and 18th centuries, but then Chile gained its independence from Spain in 1818 and things started to change. In 1851, the first French varietal vines were planted in Chile when rich landowning Chileans had traveled to France and wanted to bring back what they had experienced. This ultimately was a stroke of providence since the Phylloxera blight devastated European vines shortly after, so now Chile has almost all of the pre-Phylloxera clones and some of the oldest vines in the world (Chile is the only wine country never to be hit by pyhlloxera). Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Cot (Malbec), Merlot, Petit Verdot, Carmenere, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewurztraminer were among the grapes brought from France at this time. Immigrants from Europe may have brought over other varieties too. For example, Swiss immigrants are said to have brought Corinto (Chasselas) to the south of Chile. In addition, the devastation of French wineries brought over many French winemakers looking for work, and they helped to improve the quality of Chilean wine.
Chilean wine went through a down period in quality and in the international market due to export restrictions for much of the 20th century, but it opened up when the dictator Pinochet took over in 1973. With the help of investors like Spanish producer Miguel Torres, Chile began to focus more on quality of wines worthy of export. This meant modernization in terms of business and winemaking, international trade agreements and the overall increase of vines planted to meet the export demand. Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc plantings especially increased rapidly. Chile has since become one of the wine capitals of the world.
Another important development has been the emergence of Carmenere as the national grape. It was once thought to be a type of Merlot until 1993, when experts showed that these wines were from a long thought to be extinct strain of Carmenere, a once common grape in pre-Phylloxera Bordeaux. Nowadays, Chile is really the only significant producer of Carmenere in the world.
Another one of the biggest proponents of raising the bar in Chilean wine making and who put high end Chilean wine on par with the finest international wines has been Vina Errazuriz. Trying to do a Chilean version of the 1976 Paris Judgement which launched California wines as world class equals to French wines, Errazuriz has hosted a series of blind tastings putting their Seña and Vinedo Chadwick up against some of the greatest luxury red wines of the world. In many of the tastings, the two Chilean wines made the top of the rankings. The most famous was the Berlin Tasting in 2004 where both wines were ranked 1 and 2. In 2016, Chile received its first 100 point wine from a major critic when James Suckling gave the 2014 Viñedo Chadwick a perfect score.
Although Chilean wine has traditionally been dominated by a handful of rich families with huge properties, more and more independent wineries have been pushing the industry in terms of quality, style, varieties and techniques. MOVI, Chile’s movement of Independent winemakers, was started in 2009 for that purpose. Now, both big wineries and small wineries are moving towards sustainable and organic/biodynamic practices.
Likewise, many wineries have been looking to revive old varieties using traditional winemaking methods such as Pais and Carignan in the early 2010’s. For example, both big and small producers joined together to create VIGNO (Vigandores de Carignan in Maule) in 2010 after the earthquake damaged a lot of the bodegas in this region. It’s a collaborative group with the goal of lifting up Carignan in the market.
Nowadays, natural wines and the variety Cinsault from Itata are also starting to become popular with new independent winemakers constantly appearing. The Chanchos Deslenguados festival and community feature these new low-intervention, independent producers.
Although Chile followed the American trend of bigger, bolder modern wines in the 2000’s, there is now more focus on balance and on terroir, a French term to mean the various soil, climate and other conditions that make wine from different vineyards or even small plots in one vineyard unique. This is another way Chile is blessed because Pedro Parra, based in Concepcion, is the only non-French terroir-expert out of a handful of terroir-experts in the world. Although he consults all over the world, his influence in Chilean wine is far-reaching. For example, one of his clients is Undurraga, a mass production winery. They now have a series of small production wines called Terroir Hunter (T.H.) which seek out special terroir around the country.
The Future of Chilean Wine
As Chilean producers continue to explore new terroir even in places such as the Atacama desert and Patagonia, new expressions of Chilean wine will continue to emerge. At the same time, Chilean wine still has a reputation around the world as mainly a bargain producer of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, but slowly demand and prices for their higher end wines are increasing, and other types of wines from different regions of Chile are reaching the international market. I don’t expect that to stop. Markets like China have started to realize how much of a bargain Chile is too as the Chinese continue to expand their economy in South America.
Similarly in Chile, although wine is a huge part of their culture and cuisine, your average Chilean may not drink much more than cheap Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere with their meat heavy dishes and Merlot and Chardonnay for those with lighter tastes. Nonetheless, there are more resources for wine education in Chile than before. The increase in international influence over the past 20 years has been expanding the palate of Chilean consumers in their cuisine too. For instance, they now have to think about possibly using Pinot Noir or Sauvignon Blanc with their sushi, which is ubiquitous in Santiago these days. Unfortunately, the current social unrest over inequality will ultimately decide if Chileans will be able to afford to expand their palate to other varietals, regions, and more expensive imported international wines.
If you’d like to learn more about traditional winemaking in Chile, check-out some of my other posts:
- Chicha – Native South American wine
- Pais & Pipeño – Chile’s oldest vines
- Chacoli – Legacy of Basque in Chile
- Traditional wines in Northern Chile
- Asoleado – Traditional sweet wine
- Marga Marga Valley – Lost Valley of Traditional Chilean Winemaking
Sources: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247623864_The_History_and_Development_of_Chilean_Wines