At Andes Wines we got curious about the absence of Chilean wines from Wine Spectator’s 2011 Top 100 Wine List. This is a referential ranking among winemakers worldwide, and not being on it for the first time since 2008, when Clos Apalta 2005 from Casa Lapostolle made it to the first place, got many in the industry concerned.

Let’s go back a little. From 1988, this influential wine magazine has been reviewing wines and compiling a 100 best list reflecting significant trends, outstanding productions, and successful vintages around the world. The ranking selects four criteria: quality, value, availability, and Wine Spectator’s own excitement about the wine producer, the vintage or the region, something they call “X-factor”. In their words, “these choices reflect our editors’ judgment and passion about the wines we tasted”.

So we asked Wine Spectator executive editor Tom Matthews why Chilean wines had not raised enough passion this year. His answer was very simple and toned down: Regions rise and fall every year.

“It is not a comment on Chilean wine quality in general; it has nothing to do with the change in our lead taster; it has no larger significance at all. It reflects only our editors’ judgements about the high points in wine during the year just past. Remember, we select this list from among the more than 16,000 wines we reviewed in 2011. That’s a lot of competition for only 100 spots,” he said from his office in New York.

Matthews compared the performance of Bordeaux and Chile over the past three years to explain the situation further. “In 2009, Chile had 2 and Bordeaux had 4. In 2010, Chile had 4 and Bordeaux had 1. In 2011, Chile has none, while Bordeaux has 2. So over the three years, Chile has had 6 total wines, while Bordeaux has had 7. And in 2008, Chile earned Wine of the Year honors with Clos Apalta 2005; the last time a Bordeaux was Wine of the Year was in 2004, with a Sauternes, Chateau Riussec 2001. So you could argue that in the recent past, Chile has done just as well as Bordeaux. In the future, who knows?” he said.

There is so much the wine industry can control, adds Matthews. Much will depend on factors like vintage variation, changes in the exchange rate, shifts in consumer demand, for Chile to make it back in the list. “But I believe that Chile will continue to be a major player in the US wine market, and a significant factor in our Top 100, for many years to come”, he insisted.

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AndesWines.com Exclusive

Patricio Mejias Barrera

Right now, Patricio is studying for four years for a PhD at Lincoln University in New Zealand, in the south of Christchurch, a city in the south island. He highlights that the university has its own vineyard and winery, where they conduct tests for the pre and post-grad theses. What’s more, the university has a direct link to vineyards located throughout New Zealand. It has a world-class faculty, who almost all have PhDs or another post-doctorate degree in either viticulture or enology. Its programs include both the PhD and a Master of Horticultural Science.

Why New Zealand? What does it offer, in comparison to the US or Australia?

I decided to study in New Zealand for many reasons. New Zealand, despite being an island, has many similarities to Chile from the winemaking point of view. The quality of life here is enviable (6th to 7th best standard of living in the world) and this is a very important factor when deciding to study outside Chile. The greatest difference that tipped the balance in my decision to continue my studies at Lincoln University was that it’s the first school in the English-speaking world exclusively dedicated to cold-weather viticulture research and instruction. Here, the universities aren’t a “potpourri” of careers and specialties like in Chile. Each is dedicated to their own field in an almost exclusive manner and Lincoln is the viticulture specialist. Lincoln is a pioneer at the world level in cold weather viticulture research. When you read articles related to the topic in Chile or the rest of the world, usually one or more of the authors are from this university. Studying here, you have the possibility to converse and discuss with the scholars that, from Chile, seemed distant and unreachable. The concept of a demigod scholar who won’t receive anybody doesn’t exist here; to the contrary, the people who have achieved the most academically are often the ones most interested in conversing with you.

The difference with the rest of the world’s viticulture schools is a big topic, complicated to explain. Everything depends on your professional focus. I like the winemaking on the ground, with my feet in the mud. Lincoln is the best school for this. If you like, for example, studying the genome of the grapevine, American schools are the best for this.

Australia has a great difference from Chile or New Zealand—the climate. The winemaking zone in Australia is warm compared to both countries, which made it a less attractive option for studying. The global trend of growing in cold areas, with a winegrowing almost nonexistent 30 years ago transforming into a modern and respected viticulture now, makes New Zealand the country for studying cold weather viticulture. Incidentally, the country has other problems with respect to the traditional kind of winegrowing and therefore has different cultivation techniques. On the other hand, the Spanish and French schools are more traditional, and in those there’s not much of a place for innovation or new techniques.

What is your principal challenge in returning to Chile? Do you think finding a job will be easier because of your studies? And what area do you think you’ll work in?

I still don’t have a plan for when I return, because there’s still a lot of time between now and then. The biggest challenge is to try to contribute to the development of the Chilean industry in viticulture topics that are still nebulous or sort of like shooting in the dark. We have worked a lot with trial and error and this process must be fine-tuned a bit.

Contributing to successful, already-consolidated projects is another way to return, but as I said, it is still a long ways away. I don’t know which will be the career path I take within the field when I return. Right now, I haven’t made any promises to companies or institutions in Chile, which gives me peace of mind since I can sit down and talk to any player in the industry and decide late which path to follow.

In addition, New Zealand is a country that has been built on the recruitment of foreign talent. I’ve been told that after you arrive you soon begin to get offers for you to stay. Therefore, my future is uncertain. Right now I am dedicated to studying, to making wine, and of course, drinking it.

Leonardo Erazo

Leonardo, for his part, is focused on the study of terroir. He told us that, with his studies, it is necessary to integrate various specific areas of viticulture and winemaking, with the eventual goal of understanding zoning. To achieve this, he must understand many different disciplines.

Tell us more about your studies in South Africa.

The collaboration between professors of soil, climate, of the understanding of the physiology of different cultivars, of the resulting composition of the berry at harvest time and even more interaction between all these factors requires, of course, a huge cooperative effort. My thesis, in conjunction with two other students, plus with the support of various specialists, formed part of a project to begin to zoning of an area of the western cape of South Africa. My part was to focus on the important properties of the soil that affect the root’s growth in this area and its influence on the plant’s vigor, as well as the consequences for the sugar accumulation on the berry.

The project was let by Dr. Victoria Carey and co-supervised by Prof. Alain Deloire, within the viticulture and enology department in the University of Stellenbosch, in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Why did you decide to study in South Africa? What does it offer in comparison to the US or Australia?

The differences in potential of each different association between soil, crop and climate, for determining certain styles of wine, is a subject I’m passionate about. As for zoning in both South Africa and France, scientific efforts have been made for a long time, and from different approaches and degrees of collaboration, in order to understand these complex interrelationships.

In South Africa, particularly in the last 80 years, there has been a lot of emphasis put on the soil-root system. A strong soil department and its proximity to the department of Viticulture and Enology has resulted in important achievements having to do with the relationship between the root and the vine and the properties of the soil. This added to the efforts of Bonnardot and Carey, whose work has determined the zoning of the Stellenbosch area.

My arrival in South Africa was the fruit of something that started with a great curiosity, and later meeting Dr. Victoria Carey made up my mind. After one year working in New Zealand, I went to South Africa to join the study team she was leading and to begin my studies.

The comparison with other countries is going to depend primarily in the research of the scholars at each university. In Australia, the U.S. (California), and Germany there are very good universities, but they don’t focus strongly on many areas of viticulture and enology. The choice of university is determined by the interest of each person.

What will be your biggest challenge when returning to Chile?

Chile has already begun a very important process determined by the challenge of discovering new areas, a process that has been initiated by the current generation of enologists, professors and consultants, a concept that should be continues and consolidated by our generation that is now entering the industry. But another big challenge that remains will be to promote zoning that’s more specifically based in climate and terrain criteria. This will be supported by all the sectors of Chilean winemaking, including the universities, governmental departments, and the wineries.

This process should include many new cultivars, just as it highlights the importance of conserving traditional grapes, the wine heritage of Chile. A viticulture of 500 years has created a huge vineyard estate in our country and this must be rescued and rediscovered, a challenge of our time to enhance to diversity of Chilean wine. This growing diversity promises to be the greatest tool for making our country stand out.

Ignacio Serra

Tell us what you’re studying in South Africa.

I arrived in South Africa in 2008. First I got my master’s in viticulture, studying the roots of the vine. Now I am working to get my Doctorate in Viticulture, researching efficient use of water in the Department of Viticulture and Enology (DVO), in the faculty of AgriSciences in the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Why did you decided on South Africa? What does it offer in comparison to the U.S. or Australia? What scholarship did you receive?

First, I was interested in the work that was developing in terroir. Also, I liked the idea that it was a less traditional destination, which made the challenge more interesting. What’s more, when I arrived I realized that the famous “Flying Wine Doctor” Richard Smart received the title DScAgric in Viticulture in this university. I also realized that South Africa was the country that began the research on the relationship between the growth and function of the aerial part of the vine, the development of the root system and the soil properties.

The U.S. and Australia both have excellent universities where you can study enology or viticulture. Nevertheless, one of the positive aspects of Stellenbosch is that within the same department, you have groups that study viticulture and enology as well as an Institute of Wine Biotechnology. This means that in the same physical location there’s an interdisciplinary group, which can confront winemaking problems from the production of the grapes to the wine, including looking at a molecular level.

South Africa is a country where many different cultures coexist and is also visited by many people from all over the world, which makes it easier to learn, build relationships, and make friends that last over time. What’s more, this country is privileged with the flora and fauna it has. In the vineyards, I found chameleons, baboons, porcupines, small deer and even a caracal (a cat similar to the bobcat), to name a few.

I came to study with the support of a scholarship from the Ministry of Education, through MECESUP from the program MECESUP2, and also with the support of the University of Concepción and the University of Stellenbosch.

What is your principal challenge in returning to Chile? Tell us more about how what you’re studying will serve you.

I think that the viticulture and enology areas will face a big challenge in transforming the areas of Bio Bio, Itata and Aracanía into quality wine producing regions, in a sustainable manner that respects the environment as well as achieving its economic goals. Obviously, these objectives can only be achieved with the cooperation and work of the producers, the regional governments, and the research institutes.

To achieve these goals, I hope to be able to apply what I’ve learned about the efficient use of water to design strategies that will develop the viticulture in a context that is more challenging due to the effects of climate change. To confront these challenges, we have to use all our creativity and work in groups that integrate people with different capacities and visions. I think that the multicultural and interdisciplinary environment in the University of Stellenbosch has helped me in this sense.

Terroir and Wine Technology Center in Bio Bio

Leonardo Erazo, who has already arrived in Chillán, is focused on the Terroir and Wine Technology Center, and Ignacio Serra will soon arrive to give its progress another boost. The aims of the center are to establish technical criteria for the management of vineyards in cool climates, to study and characterize terroir in the Bio Bio region, and also to assess the suitability of different strains and clones to the climate of south central Chile.

Andes Wines joined this challenge with the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Concepción, Chillán Campus, with the support of Dean Raúl Cerda and economics professor Dr. Alejandro Chandía.

Among the services of the Wine Ambassador program we consider three main assessments like the search and penetration of a winery in a particular market, performance of sales strategies and branding, and also direct support and coordination with the export manager of particular wineries in target events & meetings.

Some of the many tasks Andes Wines International offers is to assist define markets and niches, support importers and distributors, implement strategies of press and communication, support sales initiatives to educate and incentive the distributor and accounts, schedule visits to the markets to work on brand positioning, lead sales meetings for audiences of trade or consumers and in general to implement a great data base to follow up and strengthen commercial relationships with all the participants of the sales chain.

The base for the international operation will be San Francisco, California where Pamela Villablanca will be in charge of the office and operations. Pamela is a Chilean professional who has worked in the United States since 2002 leading business missions for both premium wine companies and prestigious tailor made tourism. Pamela Villablanca performed various tasks in 20 Estates and nearly 60 cities as Ex–Brand Ambassador for Huneeus Vintners, Family group owning Veramonte in Casablanca Valley and Quintessa in California among other properties. She was recently the Estate Sales Manager for a Napa based start-up company importing and distributing South American wines in California.

PAMELA VILLABLANCA

Pamela Villablanca is a Chilean wine professional who initiated her education with the Court of Master Sommelier & the Society of Wine Educators, both in California.

Her vast experience performing public speaking educating about wines, denominations of origin and food pairing, translates into a fun and educational dialogue. Audiences have range from individuals to 200 people in languages Spanish, English and German.

Among the companies that have ask for her assistance are wineries like Veramonte(in the US) , Errazuriz (intl distributors and press) and Vinos Concha y Toro (Chile’s Foreign Affair Office); companies like Aguas Andinas for the Spanish Royal visit, Central Bank of Chile for World Bank visits, Banco Santander, Yamaha International, Derco, Nestle, ING, Falabella among many others.

Among the highlights and strengths of Andes Wines International program, is the support with a global network of communication and wine networking. The office provides wine trends & information periodically to more than 750 specialized journalist and critics, together with 2200 importers, distributors and retailers worldwide, and more than 600 media contacts in more than 15 countries.

The year 2010 Andes Wines closed Gross Wine Sales in Chile higher than US $ 650,000 that generated in three sales events of one month each for Wine and Gourmet products, and we hope to pass one million dollars in sales for the months of May, September and December 2011.

Andes Wines
andes@andeswines.com

With that memory still fresh, I slowed to a frustrating crawl as we dipped and lurched out of one hole and into another. Anyone watching from the winery itself, hidden high above me, might have mistaken the car for a tenacious little blue ant, struggling to make it back to the nest.

By Nicholas K. Mandle for Andes Wines

With a few beads of sweat on my brow and an expanse of wintered grapevines behind me, the Residence at Casa Lapostolle loomed overhead. In stark contrast to the humble, simple Chilean homes that dot the countryside, the winery building is a gleaming marvel of modern architecture. Tucked literally into the hills ringing the valley, tall beams run up the outside of the building’s round hull, curving up and over the roof like a wooden crown. A winding road – mercifully paved – wound up to the roof where, in a lofty aerie of a garden, the winemakers receive their guests. There, with all of Apalta’s vineyards laid bare below and protected by a formidable wall of granite mountain, foreign visitors are reminded: Don’t underestimate Chile.

Apalta abuts the Colchagua Valley, one of Chile’s largest wine producing regions and home to such vineyards as Montes, Los Vascos, and Santa Rita. Apalta, a smaller valley carved into one corner of Colchagua, is accessed via a single bridge which opens onto the two-lane road that winds through it.

When I arrived, the region was still repaving roads and clearing rubble in the wake of the 8.8-degree earthquake that rocked the thin country in February. The quake sent fissures up skyscrapers in Santiago, toppled large buildings in austral Concepcion, razed homes in the countryside, and cracked casks of wine at multiple vineyards, inebriating the land.

The bodega at Casa Lapostolle, a new facility opened in 2006, sustained minimal damage: A pair of broken tanks, some structural damage at the old winery building farther down the road, and a number of oaken casks that were spared a fall of eight meters thanks to the strength of their wood. Worse was the damage wrought upon the winery’s workers and their families, two of whom lost homes.

Several days after the main quake, a few lingering temblors sent employees running. “But the people are very brave,” Diego Urra, my guide at Lapostolle, told me. “They always return to work.”

Now there appears in the winery nary a beam out of place, not a wall in disrepair, not a step crumbling. “The fact that the bodega is built on a hill and shape of the building sheltered it from impact,” said Diego, “The building has an antiseismic design.”

Constructed vertically, with beehive-like fermenting tanks occupying a large, elliptical room on the top floor and storage casks buried in windowless vaults below, Casa Lapostolle uses gravity to move its product from step to step in the winemaking process, replacing the pumps used at many other wineries. The result is Lapostolle’s award-winning Clos Apalta. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Carmenere, the 2005 vintage was named Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator in 2008.

I must confess, however – and this will knock me down a few pegs in the eyes of true oenophiles – that my most salient memory at Casa Lapostolle is not swirling the sublime Clos Apalta around my tongue, but the room in which I tasted it. Buried beneath the mountain, by way of a grand spiral staircase that drives into the stone like a corkscrew, the tasting chamber is Lapostolle’s throne room: an oblong, windowless sanctum with a domed ceiling inlaid with lacquered wood; oak casks ring the circumference, and in the middle a great glass table rises from the floor, topped with long-stem glasses and several tantalizing bottles. Standing there sipping merlots and carmeneres was sweet enough, but then Diego, moving to one side of the table, flipped a few switches and illuminated a staircase under the glass. Set on hydraulics, half the glass table raised up and we descended beneath it.

There, in the faint light, the owners stored their private collection: Thousands of bottles, some Lapostolle, many not, some new-looking, others coated with a patina of dust, lined the multi-level scaffolding built into the rock. The architect (or miner) who had constructed this hidden chamber hadn’t bothered to cover up the rock-face wall on the north side, a reminder to visitors that they stood in the very bowels of the mountain. As our footsteps clinked on the metal walkways and staircases, the atmosphere evoked the secret hideout of some James Bond villain.

In contrast to Casa Lapostolle’s neo-grandeur, the bodega at Viña Neyen is ranchlike and unassuming; more what you might expect to find in the earthy Chilean hinterlands. While you can’t miss Lapostolle’s great white gates, finding Neyen takes a sharp eye. Near the end of Apalta’s one road, I barely caught the sign for the vineyard, a wooden plank with “Neyen” burned into it, along with a strange little symbol and a left-facing arrow. I turned, passing the homes of vineyard workers (nearly all of whom at just been given their lunch break, creating a mass exodus of bikers and walkers en route to a hot meal). The quake had reduced a number of the houses to rubble.

Rodrigo Abaroa met me outside, and we took a walk through the vineyard examining the plants that had until recently been dripping with plump fruit. “The climate and soil make this place very unique,” said Rodrigo, “It is a paradise for grapes.” (Perhaps reflecting that Eden-like imagery, Neyen means “spirit” in the language of the indigenous Mapuche people.)

A boutique winemaker nestled in the far eastern corner of Apalta, Neyen grows cabernet, carmenere, merlot, and syrah. Until 2003, Neyen sold its entire harvest to other Chilean wineries. Now, the bodega reserves fifteen percent to create its namesake label, a blend of Carmenere and Cabernet. The 2008 harvest produced 40,000 bottles of Neyen, about half as many as Clos Apalta. Like Clos Apalta, most will be exported, chiefly to Canada, the United States, and Europe.

When I arrived, the 2010 harvest had just been casked in Neyen’s massive adobe storehouse. Despite the rustic atmosphere, Neyen’s winemaking is a state-of-the-art operation. Wine is fermented in tanks of Italian origin and transported every year to new casks of French oak. In the storehouse itself, a sophisticated climate-control system sucks in outside air during the night and circulates it throughout the day. The earthquake had been relatively kind here as well, with only part of the building’s outside wall sloughed off and a number of older-vintage bottles knocked down from storage.

In the adjoining carriage house, now a handsome, old-world tasting room, I sampled a bottle of 2005 Neyen while Rodrigo gave me the particulars of his earthquake experience. Like the stories of so many others I had talked to, it was marked by an initial shock at the quake’s violence and tempered by the steady, austere resolve I’ve come to expect from Chileans. Though others had suffered worse, the mood of most was optimistic about the processes of rebuilding.

On my way out of Colchagua, I sat in my car on the still-broken road with a caravan of others, waiting for construction workers to wave us through. Glancing around at the rows of impossibly aligned grapevines and mountains in the distance, it was easier to understand the locals’ resilience. Though foundations had cracked, wine had been spilt, and an unfortunate many were forced to rebuild their homes, all were tied to the land. The land would endure.

By Nicholas K. Mandle for Andes Wines
andes@andeswines.com

Photos courtesy of Lapostolle and Neyén

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And people wonder why per capita wine consumption has plummeted by 50% in France over the past decade according to some sources?

Consequently, I was quite intrigued to read a study that was recently sent to me by an organization called SOWINE, which polled over a thousand French citizens ages 18 to 65 on about their information consumption habits when it comes to wine.

Here are some of the results that the French government should really be paying attention to:

Keep reading:
http://www.vinography.com/archives/2010/04/wine_and_the_internet_in_franc.html

andes@andeswines.com

“The premise of the dinner–the motivation for me to do it–was to prove a point,” said Koch. “I intentionally picked a wine-centric, fine dining, chef-driven restaurant for the Beer vs. Wine Dinner. I wanted to show that even in this ‘hostile territory’ the ability of great craft beer to pair amazingly with great food was equal, or better, to that of fine wine.”

He proved just that in 2007 when the first dinner was held. At that meal, each beverage won three courses, but brew got the high end of the final vote. The following year, wine won. Again, each beverage took three courses, but wine got the most total votes.

The tie-breaker dinner, held on Oct. 16, “was so fierce that the ballots had to be recounted twice, but it was eventually determined that Beer won by one single vote,” said Steele.

There has been a growing awareness from serious foodies that beer can often compliment a beer better than wine. Brewers from around the country are trying to bring more people to the table.

Craft beer, according to Julia Herz of the Brewers Association, “can both complement and contrast flavors and elements of today’s American dishes where as wine mostly just contrasts.”

She said the carbonation of craft beer cuts through the fat and richness of food getting diners ready for the next bite.

“So many chefs today understand the versatility of craft beer with food and that’s why you’re starting to see more selection available in today’s finer restaurants and specialty beer stores,” she said.

Photo caption: Beer vs. Wine winner Greg Koch (left) with El Bizcocho Executive Chef Judd Canepari and Barry Wiss of Napa’s Trinchero Family Estates

Photo Credit: Colleen Rugg.

John Holl writes about craft beer. He may be reached at johnholl@andeswines.com