Chile Annual Report: A Return to the Classics

“Elegance, freshness and precision” were the constant refrains I heard from Chilean producers about their 2021 wines, and these qualities were clear in my tastings of nearly 500 bottles from 2021 that I rated in this report of 1,420 wines. But the 2021 vintage is also emblematic of Chile’s wines as a whole, having evolved from a narrow focus on fruit concentration to hitting just the right notes on finesse and clarity.

Many of the winemakers I spoke with during my trip there earlier this year agreed that Chilean wines have added a measure of complexity.

"2021 is a vintage that showed precision and vertical structure and is not about fruit concentration and density,” said Almaviva winemaker Michel Friou, with whom we discussed the differences between 2021 and 2018, the latter of which is widely considered a classic vintage in Maipo Valley, where Almaviva is based.

He said that in 2021, “the beginning of spring was warm, but the summer was quite cool,” while in 2018 “we had more rain in the winter that provided good hydrate reserve, but it was warm for the rest of the vintage, which produced very well-balanced wines that tapped more into the structure than the volume.”

For Sebastian Ruiz, the winemaker for VSPT wine group's Viña Tarapaca, in Isla de Maipo, 2021 was even better than 2018 because of 2021’s superior tannin quality. "2021, for me, was one of the best vintages because we didn't have such high temperatures, especially in January and February," he said.

Many of the winemakers we talked said the lack of heat spikes in the summer of 2021 resulted in fresh yet evenly distributed tannins in the crunchy and drinkable wines.

It’s a vintage that showcased intensity and complexity from freshness, purity and precision, and not the other way around, which was the case for the hot and extremely dry 2020 and many 2019s. The top wines of 2021 are also more approachable and will age beautifully, with greater harmony and balance.

Our only perfect-scoring wine from Chile this year, the Seña Valle de Aconcagua 2021, is an awe-inspiring snapshot of the vintage that delivers immaculate fruit purity, poise and nuanced complexity from its blend of 50 percent cabernet sauvignon, 27 percent malbec, 17 percent carmenere and 6 percent petit verdot. The wine was matured for 22 months in barrels, 90 percent of which were French barriques and the rest in foudres.

The result is a creek of red fruit that burbles with poise and elegance – a nice contrast to the more opulent and generous Seña 2020. 2021 is much more discreet, if not more austere.

"It is a very elegant and balanced Aconcagua Valley vintage, and it is a true Seña vintage," Seña winemaker Francisco Baettig said. “It was moderately cool [in 2021] and we had a spring that was slightly warmer than the historical average, which gave perfect conditions for flowering and fruit set. In the summer, though, it was slightly cooler than the historical average with no heat peaks, so it was a vintage where we could pick a little later with long, soft ripening conditions, which were great for acidity with moderate alcohol.”

The Seña wasn’t the only great wine made under Baettig's watch for Eduardo Chadwick, a leading figure in Chile's wine premiumization drive who is also the president of Errazuriz. The ultra-premium Viñedo Chadwick Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Maipo 2021 is another highlight of the vintage, showing more refinement and restraint.

It comes from a 15-hectare vineyard planted mostly to cabernet sauvignon in 1992 in Puente Alto, one of the finest sources for cabernet sauvignon and where two other iconic names, Don Melchor and Almaviva, also make their wines. With a much smaller vineyard, Viñedo Chadwick is usually the earliest to start and finish picking their cabernet sauvignons. In 2021, Baettig and his team started at the end of March and finished on April 12, with the addition of 3 percent petit verdot in the final blend.

READ MORE TOP 100 VALUES WINES OF 2022

The Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2021 is also a step up from the more challenging 2020. The wine maintains the typically ashy, graphite and almost volcanic Don Melchor DNA, but is more fresh and precise. Its depth, richness and complexity make it one of the top wines from this cooler vintage, and it features 93 percent cabernet sauvignon, 4 percent cabernet franc and 3 percent merlot.

According to Don Melchor estate manager and winemaker Enrique Tirado, Puente Alto's rainfall in 2021 was a below-average 249 millimeters, with a fifth of that occurring in late January, which replenished the alluvial, gravelly rich soils. The average temperature in Puente Alto in 2021 was 17.6 degrees Celsius – the coolest it has been since 2014. In comparison, 2020 saw just 88.7mm of rain and had an average temperature of 19.5 Celsius – making it the driest and warmest year over the past three decades.

In Maipo, we also talked to Marcelo Papa, the technical director of South America's heavy hitter, Concha y Toro, who made an interesting comparison between 2020 and 2021. "2020 was a little more Napa-like while 2021 was rather Bordeaux-driven,” Papa said. “And 2022 was more Chilean, falling somewhere between Bordeaux and Napa."

His colleague Marcio Ramirez, who looks after all the carmeneres in Concha y Toro's portfolio, including its solid high-street brand Casillero del Diablo, said 2021 was cool but more humid than the acclaimed 2018 vintage, yet had similar quality and style. "Both are cool vintages, but there was a big difference with the rain: 2018 was cool, classic and drier; 2021 had more rain," Ramirez said. "At the end of January and the start of February, we had important rains and maintained the humidity the vines needed for the rest of the ripening season, which gave more juiciness and tension." His Concha y Toro Carmenere Peumo Carmin de Peumo 2021 is an excellent example of a fresher, purer and spicier carmenere loaded with juicy fruit and fine tannins.

FINE-TUNING STYLE

Of course, a cooler vintage doesn’t necessarily lead to elegance and finesse in the final wine. In Colchagua, wineries' quest for sustainability and drinkability also spurred the making of gastronomic wines with better acidity, crunchier fruit and lower alcohol.

"We have much lower alcohol today compared with 10 to 15 years ago, which was always 14 to 14.5 percent. If you view it from a viewpoint of sustainability, we produce less CO2 because of the lower sugar content in the must. We also consume less energy and nutrients to control the fermentation with lower temperature," Viña Errazuriz viticulturist Wladimir Medel said during a tasting of their Caliterra wines. The Caliterra Carmenere Valle de Colchagua Pétreo 2021 comes with just 12.5 percent alcohol.

Another excellent example of fine-tuning is underway in Curico, where Miguel Torres took a step back to redefine the style of their old-vine cabernet sauvignon Manso de Velasco. Winemaker Eduardo Jordan presented a small vertical of their 1995, 2010 and 2019 Miguel Torres Manso de Velasco Cabernet – a snapshot of the evolving wine styles in Chile over the last 30 years.

With less alcohol, oak and extraction, the Miguel Torres Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Curicó Manso de Velasco Old Vines 1995 was made at a time before the impact of climate change in wine, which ushered in riper, oaky and more extracted styles with higher alcohol and density. This 1995 is well-aged and has maintained its beautiful balance.

For Miguel Torres, a definite change in style began in 2014, and for their next three vintages they had held back the release of most of their Manso de Velascos before they reintroduced the wine with the 2018 vintage.

"We spent three years making a deeper study of the soils, separating parcels and introducing new technology. 2018 was the year where we had the rebirth of Manso de Velasco," Jordan said.

The Miguel Torres Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Curicó Manso de Velasco Old Vines 2019 is an excellent follow-up to 2018. The wine is reoriented to the classic early- to mid-90s style, highlighting balance despite the natural richness from a warmer vintage. The alcohol level today is more moderate, and the wine bottle has lost weight, too. In other words: sustainability in action.

Chile's leading organic wine producer, Emiliana, had a different approach to finding elegance with their flagship blend Emiliana Valle de Colchagua Los Robles Estate Gê 2020 – a wine that delivers a Mediterranean sensibility of vibrancy and drinkability from a challengingly hot and dry vintage while retaining its Chilean identity.

"It is the first vintage that we did not include cabernet sauvignon at all and the first vintage that we added 1 percent garnacha," said winemaker Noelia Orts. The splash of garnacha could be why the 2020 Gê is so vibrant and shows an even stronger Mediterranean profile amid a blend of 50 percent syrah, 42 percent carmenere and 7 percent malbec. It has traded some unnecessary concentration for brightness, purity and freshness.

Lapostolle is another leading producer that triumphed in 2020 with their Lapostolle Apalta La Parcelle 8 Vieilles Vignes 2020 and Clos du Lican Apalta 2020, the latter of which is only the third vintage made from 100 percent syrah from a protected hillside vineyard, or "clos.” The 2020 Clos du Lican is more intuitive and elegant than the 2019 vintage and shows an array of flavors but is also fresh with herbs, white pepper and rich blue fruit – a rare profile for a hot and dry vintage like 2020. Their Clos Apalta Valle de Apalta 2020, meanwhile, is plush and polished, with plenty of freshness and the graphite character.

"It is interesting to see that we can have all that graphite, cooler-vintage character now in a warm vintage after the fine-tunings in the vineyard," said Andrea Leon, the chief winemaker for both Clos Apalta and Lapostolle.

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF ARGENTINA 2022

In the mountain-sheltered Viña Vik in Millahue, winemaker Cristian Vallejo spared no effort to transmit extra terroir messages through his innovations, “amphoir” (amphorae plus terroir), using the clay found locally to make the amphorae, and “barroir” (barrel plus terroir) ­– toasting French oak staves from wood found in a nearby ancient oak tree forest to make VIK barrels.

Vallejo said the latter process makes for more precise winemaking. “As we import French oak staves, not barrels, we can have a better selection of the staves, too, and toast them with our own wood to the level we want,” he said.

He said Viña Vik took a step up in quality starting in 2016, when they cut down on extraction and reduced the percentage of new oak. A vertical James Suckling did earlier this year with Vallejo also showed that the wines are more dialed back now, even in warm and dry years such as 2019 and 2020 vintages.

Another impressive fine-tuning of wine in Colchagua comes from Viu Manent, which is now making fresher and more precise and pithy malbecs.

"Our Viu 1 used to have a higher percentage of the malbecs in clay-rich soils, which made bigger, more powerful wines, and we had to harvest late. Now we use more fruit from the silt soils, which tends to be fresher and more refined and allows us to pick two weeks earlier," said Patricio Celedon, who joined the team in 2010 and has been working with American winemaker Paul Hobbs over the last few years to tease out more precision and finesse in their malbecs and carmeneres.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

While powerful conglomerates and large producers in Chile continue to control the volume of wines produced in the country, smaller wineries and independent winemakers are increasingly making more avant-garde and drinkable wines as they continue to crush lighter and crunchier grapes.

For respected geologist and terroir consultant Pedro Parra, bottling his own wines isn’t just a passion, it’s more like a musical escape. His ethereal cinsaults from Guarilihue are named after his favorite jazz musicians, Sonny “Newk” Rollins and Miles Davis. The more austere and mineral Pedro Parra y Familia Valle de Itata Newk 2021 and the more Vosne-Romanee-like Pedro Parra y Familia Valle de Itata Miles 2021 reveal one thing that we don’t often see with the big brands: wine can be as personal and intimate as it is commercial and convivial.

Other passionate, independent winemakers include Felipe Garcia, who triumphed with his mourvedres this year, as well as Derek Mossman, the founder of Garage Wine Co. Mossman's carignans, from the steep-sloped Empedrado vineyards in Maule, are delicious, waking you up with their bright acidity and intense blue fruit. The otherworldly Garage Wine Co. Cariñena Empedrado Truquilemu Vineyard Field Blend 2019 is the finest example of carignan this year from the field-blend old vines in Maule, showing lots of energy and superb intensity from fresh, mouthwatering fruit.

But it’s not just Chile’s smaller boutique wineries that have the ability to make fun and drinkable, yet deliciously austere, wines. One of the country’s bigger producers, Morande, is also one of its most innovative, as it consistently shows with its Aventura (“adventure”) range, which operates under the philosophy that “the only rule is that there is no rule,” according to Cristian Carrasco, one of the three winemakers at Morande who work with chief winemaker Ricardo Baettig, Francisco's brother.

“Someone once commented that our wines are more expressive than impressive, and that makes us feel happy making these fun and drinkable wines," Carrasco said.

Their wines are made using a variety of equipment, in a wide range of shapes and materials – from concrete eggs, oak tanks, oak barrels and oak casks to ceramic clayvers, clay amphora and dolia tanks. And besides being creative and fun, these are also formidable (and affordable) wines, made using lighter grapes such as pais and cinsault. Their Morandé País Valle de Itata Adventure Colinas de Ranquil 2021 is among the top Chilean pais we rated this year, yet it retails for less than $15.

There are also more great bottles of chardonnay from Chile now. Francisco Baettig has a project with his winemaking partner, Carlos de Carlos, that delivers world-class chardonnays from the south, in Traiguen.

Picking between his intense, broad and mineral Baettig Chardonnay Traiguén Selección de Parcelas Los Primos 2021 and the linear, textured and chalky Errazuriz Chardonnay Aconcagua Costa Las Pizarras 2021, from the north, would be difficult as both are among the best Chilean chardonnays we've ever encountered.

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF THE WORLD 2022

While pinot noir is a trickier proposition from Chile, we found a number of outstanding examples from both the south and north. Besides Baettig's richer and spicier pinot noirs from Traiguen, the others that impressed us included the San Pedro Pinot Noir Valle de Malleco 1865 Tayu 2021, Concha y Toro Pinot Noir Valle de Limarí Quebrada Seca Vineyard Amelia 2021 and Maycas del Limarí Pinot Noir Valle de Limarí 2021.

While Chile's 2021 vintage delivered many fresh, precise and deliciously drinkable wines, there is no doubt that the country faces severe climatic challenges, especially with droughts increasing the risk of fire. After a promising 2022, which some believe stands between 2020 and 2021, 2023 looks less auspicious. The return of hot and dry weather patterns during veraison and a severe fire in Itata and part of the Central Valley make it a complicated vintage.

But quality-conscious producers are prepared for the impact of climate change and vintage variations, which means consistency and value should remain a Chilean stronghold. In the meantime, consumers can enjoy all the freshness, elegance and refinement that came out of 2021 – the year Chile returned to the classics.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.