The Aconcagua valley is one of
Chile's wine-producing regions.
Trends in
Chilean
Wine
By Melissa Dowling
C
hile has significantly ramped up the quality and variety
of its winemaking in recent years. But the country's
winemakers have had their share of challenges, from
learning how to cultivate some of the newer varietals to trying
to shed Chile's rap as a low-cost wine producer.
While Chile has been producing and exporting wine for
centuries, winemaking for the purposes of selling abroad started
in 1980, says Santiago Margozzini, head winemaker at Montgras
in Chile's Colchagua Valley. "We realized there was a market
for wine outside Chile, but we had to make improvements," he
says. After spending 15 years improving technology, in the late
'90s "we realized we had to plant varietals in different areas."
Ed Flaherty, chief winemaker for Vina Tarapaca in Chile's
Maipo Valley, agrees. "In Chile in the early 1990s, you looked
at the commercial appeal of the varietal and then planted—
without really thinking what works." But Chile has learned a
lot in the past 20 years, according to several winemakers based
in the Santiago area.
PERFECTING PINOT NOIR
"The problem with the country is that we can produce a lot
of good varieties of wine; it's harder to stand out," says Andres
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