There’s more to Chile than the big producers

Way back in the late 1980s, Chilean wine suddenly became A Thing in Irish supermarkets. I seem to remember that Superquinn was the first out of the traps when they embraced the produce of a hitherto unknown producer called Santa Rita. And then Errazuriz arrived, initially under its full and unwieldly handle of Errazuriz-Panquehue. Arriving shortly after that, and bizarrely thanks to me, was Undurraga (as I was consulting for a small importer at the time).

Well, the rest is history. Or, perhaps more aptly, the rest has been a huge success story in that Chile is our number one source for wine by a country mile, representing very nearly 25 per cent of imports followed by Spain at 15.3 per cent, Australia at 13.3 per cent and France languishing at 12.7 per cent. When the first Chilean brands arrived here, France would have been firmly in the number one spot.

There’s usually a downside to big success stories like these and it’s the demand for ever cheaper Chilean varietals, especially Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot, for a certain kind of restaurant house wine. This has resulted in a lot of perfectly well made but boring plonk. And it’s hard to persuade people of the ancient truism that the more you spend on wine the more quality you get, in the context of Chile.

The big Chilean brands — Santa Rita, Cono Sur, Carmen and the like — have massive economies of scale but they also have wines at all levels (although, to be fair, not the boring plonk one mentioned above). Some of their wines are astonishingly good but it pays to trade up.

Some have now reached crazy prices. Flagships that I remember enjoying in the 1990s, like Sena from Errazuriz and Santa Rita’s Casa Real are over €100 at this stage. However, the best value from Chile, in my view, is well south of those prices. Few of us make a habit of buying wines in the €20 to €30 bracket but this is where Chile, and a lot of other countries too, really score.

It would be a mistake to think that Chile is all about massive producers. They certainly dominate the industry but there’s a growing number of small, independent, very high quality producers, like El Grano, founded by Denis Duveau who sold up in the Loire and moved to the Curico Valley, and the maverick and aptly named Clos des Fous of which we need to see more in Ireland.