Written for The Drinks Business, October 2014
Chile is well-known for the concentration of its wine production, allowing the country to make consistent wine at competitive prices.
But emerging is a new wave of boutique projects from the full length and breath of the country, resulting in original blends from little-known places. The source of such novelty is a broad range of personalities, all of whom are driven by a desire to celebrate Chile’s vinous diversity.
Louis-Antoine Luyt
“It’s a little odd talking about all this stuff [natural wine] from a Chilean point of view, since every single peasant here makes natural wine…” says Louis-Antoine Luyt about his winemaking in Maule. Using traditional countryside techniques like pressing grapes by hand through canes, crushing grapes by foot and plowing his dry farmed vineyards by horse, Luyt is doing nothing new. However by successfully placing his wines in the mainstream, Luyt has become one of the edgiest producers in Chile. “All my oenologist friends out here think I’m absolutely crazy, and I think this is why I have less and less oenologist friends!” The Frenchman has however made friends with the growing ‘natural’ or garage wine movement in Chile, of which he is unquestionably a leader. Not just championing his own wines, he is also bringing other small producers to the fore with his popular, annual Santiago wine tasting Chanchos Deslenguados.
Rafael Urrejola
Quick to rise to the top, Urrejola is one of the youngest winemakers in Chile to have reached such an esteemed position before he turned 40. Head winemaker of Undurraga, Urrejola has been with the company since 2007 and spearheaded its widely acclaimed Terroir Hunter series which sources site specific grapes from all over the country. “This range of wine was born to show the huge diversity of origins, area, identities and expressions of Chilean wines…” he says. “We’re looking for this to be considered as a range that is a reference of Chile’s diversity and uniqueness in wines of origin.” At the helm of one of the most prominent commercial wineries in Chile, Urrejola himself is one of the new references for Chilean wine.
Juan Ledesma
A little bit of madness in the wine world is always welcome, and Ledesma’s project has it by the barrel full. Ledesma makes Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon from old vines in Itata and after tasting each wine he and a local band improvise songs according to each wine’s character. The songs are then played on loop for a year by speakers plunged inside the barrel as the wine ages to transform them physically for more aromatic results. Recently bottled, his wines will be launched in early 2015 and are already causing a ripple in the sub-culture. “The reaction of the public was amazing, from perplexity to tears!” says Ledesma about a recent tasting in Sao Paulo (one of many which has documented blind tasters noticing the difference between music-aged wines and control wines). Ledesma isn’t stopping at musical wines, but also experimenting with native wood for barrels in search for ‘a deeper relationship between territory and ancestral culture’ and is making a hybrid beer-wine this year. Whether you find his projects err on the side of madness or of genius, Ledesma is certainly shining a light on the new peripheries of Chilean winemaking.
Felipe Müller
Producing some of the most exciting wines in the country with Tabali winery from Limarí Valley since 2006, Müller has been a forerunner in this cool and dry coastal region whose particular soil type has inspired new vineyard explorations in Chile. “The most important thing is that in the coastal part of Limarí you can find limestone… in Tabalí we are specialists in this type of soil, it gives such a different character, quality and ageing potential to the wines, that you can’t believe they are from Chile!” comments Müller. “It´s a new dimension for the Chilean wine category.” This marked minerality and chalky character has taken Chilean wine in a new direction, and Müller isn’t stopping there. As yet unreleased, there are two vintages waiting in the cellar coming from a new area in Limarí – vineyards in the Andes mountains planted in 2010 at 2000m altitude. We’ll see much more from Müller yet…