Wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) are not native to the Americas; they arrived in the 1500s with the Spanish missionaries who needed wine to celebrate the Catholic mass. The first vines were the País (pa-EES) grape that is similar to California’s Mission grape. In the 16th century Chile’s first wine boom began in earnest. Residents of the burgeoning capital city of Santiago clamored for more wine to quench their thirst and satisfy their spiritual needs, and the surrounding Maipo Valley proved to be a tremendous source of red wine.
After Chile gained independence from Spain in 1810, members of the country’s wealthy families embarked upon intercontinental pilgrimages that would profoundly change Chilean life, culture, and wine forever. By the mid-1800s, interest in European-style fine wine production had caught on. Families with fortunes from mining and early industry built extraordinary mansions beyond the city limits and surrounded them with vineyards and European style gardens. Many of Chile’s established wineries were formed during this period including Carmen, Concha y Toro, Cousiño Macul, Santa Carolina, Santa Rita, and Undurraga in the Maipo Valley, along with Errázuriz Panquehue in Aconcagua and what is now San Pedro in Curicó.
Varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Carménère, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Semillón, and Riesling produced noble wines that quickly gained popularity and replaced the País grape, which was relegated to the country’s winemaking extremes, where it is still used today for rustic wines for local consumption.
Trans-Atlantic exchange also had its downside. European gardening enthusiasts had unwittingly imported the devastating vineyard pest Phylloxera hidden in the roots of the native North American grape vines. Europe’s Vitis vinifera vines were defenseless against the louse that quickly decimated thousands of hectares of vineyards. The pest was re-introduced to the Americas with the import of Vitis vinifera vines, yet for reasons that have never fully been understood, Chile remains phylloxera-free to this day.
Two world wars and decades of state protectionism forced Chile down a path of technological isolation for nearly 50 years. The mid-20th-century Agrarian Land Reform took its toll on a wine industry that had belonged to the elite, and Chile's isolation from global trade kept the country out of the wine trade for decades more. The country reversed its closed-door policies in 1980s, effectively giving rise to the third and best-known boom in the history of Chilean winemaking.
Once again, foreign influence played a key part in Chile’s wine industry. Spanish winemaker Miguel Torres chose the Curicó Valley to establish his New World winery and others from France, Germany, Italy, and California soon followed. Varietal selection had stagnated to concentrate on Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot, but the introduction of new grape varieties and new vineyard management techniques increased quality and reduced crop yields.
Chile’s signature grape Carmenere appeared during this process of vineyard renovation. The world was aware that Chile’s “Merlot” was unique, but it wasn’t until 1994 that French ampelographer Jean Michel Boursiquot finally attached a name to the variant variety. Carmenere, a Bordeaux red variety that had been thought lost to phylloxera was alive and well in Chile.
Today Chile’s winemakers actively seek out new viticultural zones, in ever higher altitudes east to the Andean piedmont, west to the Pacific coast, north to the Elqui Valley, south to Bío-Bío, Osorno and beyond. In the process they have rediscovered dry-farmed vineyards that have never seen a chemical fertilizer, whose deep, ungrafted roots seek nutrients deep within the earth and produce gorgeously complex wines that reconfirm the benefits of letting nature take its course. After nearly 500 years of winemaking heritage, Chile’s wine industry is fresh, young, and boldly evolving to meet the needs of today’s demanding world markets.
Thank you to Wines of Chile for providing content on this topic