At Morton’s Chilean reds are paired with steak.
Sandy Block, master of wine and vice president of beverage
at 33-location Legal Sea Foods, also says that the positive perception of Chilean wines makes them easy to sell. He adds that the upper-end ones are often a hand-sell. He carries 12 to 15 Chilean wines at his diff erent locations, priced from $23 to $75 by the bottle and $7.50 to $10.50 by the glass. He says the number of Chilean wines he has featured over the past few years has stayed stable. “Th e whites are clean and fresh and pair best with seafood
and veggie tapas. Th e reds are generally medium weight and fruit-driven styles and work best with red meats,” says Ken Collura, wine director at Andina, a one-location Peruvian restaurant in Portland, Oregon. He generally carries 18 to 20 diff erent Chilean wines at any time, priced from $28 to $145 a bottle and $7 to $10 a glass. He adds that the quality of Chilean wines, “continues to
improve every year.” Block also confi rms that the country’s reputation for wine production continues to improve every year.
A WINE TO HANG ITS HAT ON Chile is know for both single-varietal reds and whites as well
as blends that usually make use of the Bordeaux red varietals. Carménère is certainly Chile’s fl agship and top varietal and more syrahs and pinot noirs are being produced. Th is has given
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MAY 2011 | 47
operators many more choices about how to merchandise and pair these wines, but may have made Chile harder to understand and market as it doesn’t have one super-strong image to sell its wines (as Argentina has cowboys, red meat and malbec). “Th e lack of a category kingpin like malbec or pinot noir holds
the region back from greater success. If carménère became the new shiraz or torrontés the new pinot grigio that could change,” says Kasperski. He adds that, “Argentina is a bigger part of our program due to the recent juggernaut that malbec has become, but in turn that has opened guests’ minds up to trying wines from Chile, Uruguay and even Mexico.” In some ways the fact that Chilean wines are a stand alone
category with few direct competitors can be positive for on- premise sales. Th ey have “no real competition,” notes Block. “Th ey are perceived as separate.” Perhaps that sense of standing alone and diff erentiating
themselves from the pack will continue to help Chilean wines build their presence on-premise.
