A Different Chile: Greatness beckons, but is it a leap too far?

After finishing our ratings of 1,065 bottles of Chilean wines in Hong Kong, one thing is clear: the Andean country is churning out bottles of excellent quality and remarkable value, and these characteristics were cemented by fantastic 2018 and 2019 vintages.

Although there was conspicuous improvement in our tastings this year, there is still a good way to go from excellence to greatness. This may be a surprising conclusion given the high expectations for Chilean wines – after all, even mass-production bottles from the country show higher-than-reasonable quality.

But with the growing acclaim for the country’s wines, the pressure is now on the wineries to step up their games. Instead of sitting in their comfort zones and regularly producing wines in the range of 90 to 92 points – the benchmark for high-quality Chilean wine – the producers need to make the extra effort to close the gap.

This may be a difficult proposition for less well-funded producers, who always need to think twice about costs. But these smaller makers and boutique wineries are also the most active, innovative part of Chile’s wine industry. Having no fears of breaking away from vested interests and entrenched rules, they are willing to embrace change and dare to be different, carving out a niche for themselves in the market. They are the reasons we had the privilege of enjoying so many eye-opening – even mind-blowing – wines with immense drinkability.

The tasters and editors at JamesSuckling.com spent the past few weeks tasting about 50 Chilean wines a day to give our readers a clue about where the country stands with its most recently released vintages.

This year, syrah is making even a stronger statement in our tastings than before. We have a soft spot for syrahs that express different terroirs and winemaking prowess and whose quality competes with the best of the world but at only a fraction of the price. The quality, diversity and more-than-reasonable price points convinced us that Chilean syrah has come of age. Producers, big or small, like Polkura, Matetic, Montes, Concha y Toro, Lapostolle, Villard, Garces Silva all made characterful syrahs covering different styles of the grape.

Among the wines we reviewed for this report, 920 bottles received scores of at least 90 points, which is our threshold for excellent quality. This means 86% of the wines we rated are highly recommendable – a new record for Chile, and significantly above the excellency ratio in last year’s Chile report of 83%, and well ahead of 2019’s 73% and 2018’s 74%.

We believe great vintages, a successful match of grapes, some new terroirs and viti/vini advancements are all behind the improvement this year. The wines we tasted come from both the north and south of Chile, from racy, easy-to-drink cinsault, pais, semillon, to fresh, zingy grenache and spicy Rhone blends, and even the emerging marselans. They are at the heart of Chile’s wine industry, driving the market to become more inclusive and contemporary, and leading to a more convivial era of wine appreciation in the country.

THE NEWEST VINTAGE: A TREAT FROM MOTHER NATURE

Several Chilean winemakers consider 2018 to be a top vintage, following in the wake of a warm, dry 2017 and a cool, wet 2016. A few winemakers we talked to said they were now prepared for continuously capricious weather, given the realities of climate change. Francisca Palacios, the new-generation winemaker at Odfjell Vineyards, commented that each vintage seems to have become more challenging to the point that "we don't know what to expect anymore."

But 2018 was a real treat from Mother Nature, with the wines showing remarkable stature and balance. “It was like a Christmas gift from Santa, and nature was generous enough to give it all," said Andrea Leon, the winemaker for Lapostolle and Clos Apalta, who recalled that the winter of that year was sufficiently cool and wet with good moisture, followed by a moderate spring and summer.

"It was a late vintage because it was fresh during the fall, and we had a couple of small rains again – less than 20mm of rainfall during harvest – so we did not need to irrigate the old vines at all, and very little [of] the new vines,” Leon said. “It was a wonderful harvest … 2018 was everything that you could wish for to make wines that were fully ripe but have a lot of elegance and freshness."

Leon also believes that such cool, long and slow growing seasons offer "the best of both worlds" to grapes like carmenere, adding both concentration and nuance. She describes the resulting wines as having “a Burgundy finesse in the end."

Charles de Bournet, whose family owns Lapostolle, which runs the premium Clos Apalta, calls 2018 “one of the best cold vintages of the 21st century.” His Clos Apalta Valle de Apalta 2018 – a blend of 64% carmenere, 18% cabernet franc and 18% merlot – shows impressive aromatics and restraint, with dialed-in freshness and silky tannins.

2018 was indeed a year where some quality carmenere wines shined, and the most consistent players delivered the top wines for this report. Montes Carmenere Petit Verdot Valle de Colchagua Purple Angel 2018,Hacienda Araucano Carmenere Valle de Colchagua Alka 2018 and Santa Carolina Carmenere Peumo Herencia 2018 are great reference points for those with only casual feelings for carmeneres. Sourced from the top terroirs of Peumo, Apalta and Marchigue, the consistent quality of carmeneres assures its commercial value remains intact.

Marcelo Papa, the chief winemaker of Latin American wine giant Concha y Toro, gave us a retrospective on the recent vintages. He recalled that 2016 was an El Niño year, so it was cooler, cloudier and filled with rain. "There was a huge rainfall in the middle of the harvest, which gave many vineyards a headache,” he said. “The opposite was true in 2017, which was warm and dry, giving the wines more power, with richness in the fruit."

Despite the fact that some very exciting wines were produced in 2017, that year is mostly remembered as one where wildfires devastated many vineyards, and so consumers would be advised to beware of potential smoke-taint issues, with wines showing charring or an overly smoky nose with just a pittance of fruit. But we have never found many wines with the issue in our tastings.

For Papa, the subsequent 2018 was a "perfect" year in terms of balance, delivering wines that embody elegance, precision and power. The weather during the year certainly shed light on the quality and style of the vintage. Don Melchor's winemaker, Enrique Tirado, who made a 100-pointer from the 2018 vintage, showed us some statistics for Puente Alto, where they operate: the average summer temperature of 17-18 Celsius was about normal, as was the annual rainfall at 343.8mm, compared with 193mm in 2017.

Sven Bruchfeld of Polkura winery in Colchagua said 2018 was one of the best vintages in his 25 years of winemaking. His syrahs consistently stand out among some of the most exciting and diverse wines that Chile has ever delivered.

"It is a slightly cooler vintage, but it's not a cold one,” Bruchfeld said. “It comes to a point where everything came together. Also, it wasn't a small vintage in terms of the crop. While a smaller crop is likely to produce better wines, it was not the case for 2018. It was quality and volume coming together.”

LESS OPULENCE, MORE FINESSE

Compared with 2017, the successful reds from 2018 could be a little less opulent and dense, but in exchange, they are more contained and linear with engaging, subtle complexity and real finesse. Besides Montes Purple Angle and Clos Apalta, Vik Valle de Cachapoal VIK 2018 and Emiliana Valle de Colchagua Los Robles Estate Gê 2018 are also the top wines from 2018 we tasted, showing poise, complexity, energy and drinkability through a more immediately fragrant nose and succulent quality of the fruit, but without sacrificing the age-worthy qualities thanks to the depth of flavors and the seamless, satin texture of the tannins they contain.

Together with the two 100-point wines we rated last year from this vintage from Viña Don Melchor and Seña, they showcase the sterling quality of 2018.

For Chile’s 2019 vintage, many wines harken to 2017, with density and power. The best from 2019 also came with intrigue and polish, such as Eduardo Chadwick's Viñedo Chadwick Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Maipo 2019, Seña Valle de Aconcagua 2019 and Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2019.

Bruchfeld said 2019 “was warmer for us with a very small crop influenced by water availability." The data that Tirado, of Don Melchor, provided also showed this. In Puente Alto, Chile's modern hub of world-class cabernet sauvignons, there was just 161.6 mm of precipitation for the year, half of 2018’s rainfall total. It was also slightly cooler there in 2019 than 2018 in the January-April period.

"It was a dry spring with a lower yield, but the quality of the wine was very good, just not perfect," added Aurelio Montes Sr., the owner of Vina Montes. There were also more peaks of higher temperatures than the moderate 2018, but with cool nights, and that combination could have contributed to better color, concentration and acidity in the grapes.

Palacios, the winemaker for Odfjell, said their 2019s are the best to date, with the freshness, fruit and balance the winery strives for.

Meanwhile, Papa of Concha y Toro said 2019 “was a vintage that I would consider in line with 2018, but slightly warmer, which gives the wines more power and flavor but a little less elegance.” He said his favorite vintage was 2018, followed by 2019, and then some of the 2017s and ‘16s.

The year 2020, however, was considered "a crazy vintage" by many winemakers, and not only because of Covid-19. When the lockdown started in Chile, most wineries had already finished their harvests, as many had started at least two weeks earlier than usual. It was a hot, dry year seriously affected by drought. The warm winter with a few frosts also brought down the volume on the vintage.

"In Maipo, we only had some 80mm of rain. Normally it is around 300mm, so we had a problem with irrigation,” Papa said.

Many winemakers confirmed that they, too, had irrigation woes, including a few wineries from such coastal areas as San Antonio Valley and Casablanca. Julio Bastias, the chief winemaker at Matetic Vineyards in Rosario Valley, commented that it was a “super dry” year, and perhaps one of the driest ever.

At the end of February 2020, I was in Casablanca – about 75km northwest of the capital, Santiago – when Matetic's team was ready to harvest their chardonnays. When I tasted the grapes in the vineyards with Matetic's team, I remember Bastias describing the year as a very “weird” one, with the red grapes ripening early and the window for harvest narrower. Chardonnay was picked ahead of sauvignon blanc.

In our tasting, the worrying drought showed its impact, too. We found that the extremely hot and dry weather made it difficult for some grapes to reach proper maturity. Take Chile’s workhorse sauvignon blanc, for example: a number of wines from even a few respected producers were too green and meager. In the worst case, it was like tasting asparagus juice. We speculate that the bland flavor may have resulted from the drought and heat, which stunted the ripening of the fruit and lifted the pyrazine character. The inconveniences wrought by the Covid-19 lockdown may have added insult to injury.

Another pressing issue for most viticultural areas in Chile is the water shortage, and 2020 was a glimpse of how bad it could be. "Drought has had a major impact for the last 10 years in Chile,” Bruchfeld said. “For us, the underground water we have in the two wells almost dried out. The water table went below our pump, and there is no way we could go any deeper because we are already on the rock.

"Of course, it is super easy to complain and blame climate change, but it's just not fair," said Bruchfeld, who added that wineries need to acknowledge that they are also to blame for the water shortages, given their high amounts of water extraction. "We are all part of this,” he said.

Bruchfeld's neighbor, Montes Sr., said he became aware of this issue long ago, and so started dry farming and using partial irrigation. "Ten years ago, when I realized this drought is getting worse and worse, I told my people I want to go to hell first where there is no rain at all, and then come back," said Montes. Now, the 2020 vintage must have given Chile a clue of what a viticultural "hell" looks like without rainwater.

So-called dry farming is one solution when there is a lack of rain and underground water is limited, although it comes at a cost. Montes Sr. said producers using these methods must be prepared for low yields, adding that "if you don't get paid back at a more reasonable price for each bottle of your wine, you won't be able to afford” dry farming.

"You also have to find the valley floor, not the hillside vineyard, with soils that can hold the water," added Bruchfeld, who told us that it was not his intention to make a different wine or a better wine through dry farming. His Polkura Syrah Valle de Colchagua Marchigue Secano (Dry Farmed) 2019 is one of the most characterful syrahs and one of the best values we know of from Chile. It comes from non-irrigated vines and was bottled separately.

"In 2019, we changed our vineyard's irrigation system to 100% partial root drying,” Bruchfeld said. “I heard about it many years ago from Australia, but it was a surprise that there are only two vineyards in the world that are completely under partial root drying. The other one is in Washington state."

In partial root drying, water is applied alternately to each side of the root to train the vines to be more efficient with the water – as if "trying to fool the vine with less water applied," Bruchfeld said.

As most of the rain in Chile falls during the winter, vineyards often become scorched during the hot, dry summers. Most of the water retained in the soil comes from the winter rains, and the vines can still thrive over the next six months with little rain, and no irrigation is used during this period.

"Remember that most of the dry-farming projects in Chile get twice the water we have a year,” Bruchfeld said. “I have done a lot of research and learned from a vineyard in La Mancha, where they dry-farmed tempranillo from scratch. But at the end, all this says is that vines are truly amazing creatures!"

Click here to see Part 2 of our special Chile report.

– Zekun Shuai, associate editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated for this report by James and other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many of the latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

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