People who were there swear that, in 2003, Chile exhibited at a major Italian wine fair under the proud banner “Chile — the country with the second lowest level of corruption in South America.” 

You’d have to question whether it’s the best way to sell wine. Certainly for Kristen Chiriaco, manager at Stirling Fine Wines in New Jersey, Chile’s ethical probity is not a major attraction. “All of the Chilean wines are better value, and we would usually recommend them on that basis,” she says.

Not because they’re exciting? Romantic? Poetic?

“Inexpensive. Reliable,” says Chiriaco. “You know what you get.”

There’s a place for reliable, of course. But most wine regions aspire to something more inspiring. So, in 2014, Wines of Chile commissioned marketing firm, Ipsos, to help them liven up their image, which is a bit like trying to be entertaining by rote-learning a joke book. 

But they were right that something needs to change, because there’s a growing mismatch between the country’s bland image and the kind of wines it’s increasingly starting to produce.

The birth of safe wine

When U.K. wine writer, Tim Atkin MW, described Chile as, “the Volvo of the wine world,” 20 years ago, meaning reliable but unexciting, it wasn’t as critical as it seemed. Chilean winemakers know their stuff. Sales and marketing teams listen to their customers, give them what they need at competitive prices, and deliver on promises. Chiriaco even cites reliability of winemaking as a selling point.

Some of the cautious, safety-first Chilean mentality may be explained by its remote location. Cut off behind the vast barrier of the Andes, Chile’s not an island, but it’s definitely isolated. As one insider puts it, “Chileans are still humble and delighted when someone knows something about the country.” The desire not to offend is understandable.

But it’s also true that Chileans are increasingly bridling at this safe but dull assessment, saying that they’re victims of an image problem, not a product problem. 

“I believe that we have not failed either in the way we do things or in the attractiveness of our country and our products,” says Adolfo Hurtado, managing director of MontGras and former winemaker of Cono Sur. “But perhaps we have failed in the way we have communicated in the past.”

He may well have a point. But the way in which Chile’s wine industry came into being is probably a contributing factor to the country’s mentality, too. 

While the first vineyards were planted 200 miles south of Santiago by Spanish missionaries, the modern industry began in the 19th century when the country’s wealthy industrialists began creating show-off estates for themselves. 

Nothing rounded off a copper magnate’s grand manor house quite like a vineyard, planted, naturally, with the aristocratic varieties of Bordeaux and Burgundy. This is how Chile’s love affair with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay began. 

Picking grapes grown on pre-Phylloxera root stocks in the Maule Valley. Photo courtesy of Garage Wine Co.

Chile has an enviable climate, and these transplanted Bordeaux varieties did very well. They were easy to ripen, easy to drink, and competitively priced. Everyone was happy. Particularly the world’s supermarkets, who hoovered the stuff up by the container load. 

But it also meant that Chile’s industry grew from the boardroom down rather than the vineyard up. It’s a much more corporate industry than, say, France or Italy. A dozen or so major companies — the five biggest being Concha y Toro, Cono Sur, San Pedro, Luis Felipe Edwards, and Santa Rita — still account for a majority of the wines.

A renaissance

If you want to make great, as opposed to good, wine, vines need to struggle; to be on edge. As pioneering Chilean winemaker, Marcelo Retamal, of Viñedos de Alcohuaz, puts it, “safe places equals boring wine!”

Pioneering winemaker Marcelo Retamal sitting in a vineyard high in the Andes. Photo courtesy of Marcelo Retamal.

In search of not safe, not boring, for 20 years or so, wineries have been pushing out of the Central Valley to make more of the country’s geography. 

Chile runs almost 3,000 miles north to south — the Northern Hemisphere equivalent of going from Oaxaca in Mexico to Quebec — all jammed into 150 miles between the Pacific to the west and the Andes to the east. So the opportunities for finding unusual places to plant vineyards are boundless.

At least, as long as you can find water and your corporate backer is prepared to sanction the expense. Neither of these things are easy, and planting new areas has been slow. Even so, there are now vines from the Atacama Desert in the north to the windswept island of Chiloé, 800 miles south of the capital, Santiago.

Those old southern vineyards planted by the missionaries in the 16th century have also had a renaissance. Naturally cooler and naturally damper, the likes of the Maule and Itata Valleys have thousands of acres of old vines that can tolerate dry periods without irrigation and, if handled correctly, can give wines that are different in style to other Chilean regions.

Oh, and land down south is cheap. Experienced winemakers have been able to buy vineyards or grapes as side projects and experiment with unusual varieties and different winemaking techniques, free from the commercial needs of their employer’s customers.

The new wave also comes from a very different mindset. “It is volitional and parcel-oriented,” says one of the pioneers, Derek Mossman Knapp, of Garage Wine Co. “It has to do with old vines and focus. The cellars make different wine on purpose, not because of a next big thing mentality.”

It is a shift from boardroom to vineyard — even if bigger companies have seen what’s happening and jumped on the bandwagon too. New thinking and new plantings have given Chile a very different narrative, albeit one that was hiding in plain sight the whole time. 

Mossman Knapp describes it as a movement that’s about “land not brand.” 

Diversity and novelty

From old vine Semillon, País, and Carignan to Rieslings on the side of a volcano and Garnacha (Grenache) halfway up the Andes, Chile’s journey of exploration and rediscovery is leading to some exceptional wines that are way beyond $12 Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc.

Not everything has changed, of course. The typical Chilean wines, so beloved by Kristen Chiriaco’s customers, are still reliably good and cheap. And Chile has maintained its status as the second-least corrupt country in South America.

But now there’s romance and poetry too. No need for consultants explaining how to be interesting; the wines themselves do all the talking.

3 classic and 2 new wave Chileans to try:

*** Chris’s notes are for the latest vintages of these wines: TerraNoble Ca2 2018, Garage Wine Co. Pais 2020, and the De Martino Gallardia Cinsault 2020, which have not yet arrived in the U.S. We have listed available vintages.