Unearthing Treasures from Chile

Vineyards in Maule © O. Fournier

If you know just a little about Chile’s wine regions and imagine it as a ‘new’, modern wine country with high altitude vineyards, then the following won’t add up: Chile’s most important wine region has not only some seriously old vines of classic red wine varieties, ungrafted of course, but most of these are grown in dry-farmed vineyards (no irrigation) at altitudes no higher than in Burgundy or Alsace.

In recent years it’s been fashionable to talk about Casablanca, Leyda (San Antonio) and Limari as ‘newer’, cooler (in both senses) wine regions of Chile; and of Maipo and Colchagua (especially Apalta) as classic regions for fine, long-lived reds. All these regions have had extensive new vineyard plantings in the past decade giving a very young average vine age, and they pretty much rely on irrigation – finding a decent water source in the newly developed areas of Chile in particular has been as much of a challenge as it is in Australia. But, while these regions are all potentially excellent, perhaps the time is right now to talk about the Maule Valley, which represents around 43% of Chile’s vineyards and it seems, has simply been forgotten about whilst everyone raves about developments in other regions.

I drove through the Maule about ten years ago and was struck then by the beauty of the region, and also by the fact that the vines looked so old, often trained as bush vines with no sign of an irrigation system. At the time the region was mainly dismissed as a bulk wine area with slightly erratic (i.e. less than perfect) weather especially at harvest. Just occasionally back then someone mentioned the old vines – Valdivieso’s curious but delicious Cabernet Franc I remember in particular came partly from Maule vineyards that were claimed to be over 70 years old. Well it’s taken a few years, but after attending an excellent seminar at the London Wine Trade Fair last month where Maule was referred to as the Cinderella region of Chile it seems that Maule is at last being taken a little more seriously.

One champion on a mission to support the area is the exuberant Spaniard José Manuel Ortega of Bodegas O. Fournier who spent several years looking for his ideal wine regions in Chile, having already established a base in Argentina as well as in Spain. He finally selected San Antonio to plant Sauvignon and Pinot, and has his feet placed firmly in Maule soils for all other reds. Here, however, there are no new plantings planned, instead he contracts exclusively with local farmers who have old vines, between 65 and 120 years old. Maule, whose main city is Talca, about 250km south of the capital Santiago, is a very poor farming area of Chile and up until recently vine farmers have received extremely low payment for their grapes. Bodegas O Fournier supports them by helping them to graft old Pais vines over to Cabernet Sauvignon as part of a social re-structuring project. José Manuel explained that the extreme temperature variations in Maule, during the growing season which can go from daytime highs of 30-35°C to night-time lows of 6-12°C, give naturally high acidity, low pH and a more moderate natural alcohol level than other regions in Chile. He stressed the importance of the old Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan vines in the region and has even found some 120 year old Cabernet Franc vines (see above). The produce from the vineyards he works with was going into tetra-packs (wine cartons) before he arrived. After tasting the lively red-fruit flavoured Urban red 2008 blend followed by a young oaky Centauri 2007 blend we tasted two 2008 barrel samples. One was from very old Cabernet Sauvignon and the other from the even older Cabernet Franc - both had surprisingly elegant structure combined with intensity of fruit that promises serious wines in the future.

Maule is a large valley and has several sub-districts that, as elsewhere in Chile, vary in climate from the Pacific western side to the Andean eastern side, becoming hotter on the valley floor in the middle. Another champion of Maule is Rafael Tirado, the winemaker for VIA wines who have vineyards throughout the region. In their flagship vineyard near the town San Rafael, it is the sheer luminosity from the Andes that adds to the quality of the wines, Rafael explained. He presented four excellent wines starting with an unusual Sauvignon Blanc blended with 15% of the red Carmenère pressed directly after picking. I had tasted this earlier in the year when Rafael had explained that the Carmenère added a chilli pepper and tangy character to the Sauvignon, which is not famed from this area – it works to give a highly balanced wine with a good texture. Before we tasted two young reds, Rafael gave us a complete surprise of a wine from his own personal production, a 1997 Maule Cabernet Sauvignon that I wrote down simply as lovely. Then we finished with a delicious Cabernet/Merlot blend and finally a barrel sample of 92% Carignan blended with 8% Carmenère again showing structure combined with finesse.

It’s time I returned to visit the Maule Valley again to see these old vines up close and taste the wines in situ – there’s even a Wine Route there now, grouping some of the region’s wineries with visitor facilities. And if you were harbouring any of those misconceptions about Chile being a new wine country, perhaps it’s time you reconsidered the terminology - with vines of 120 years old it can hardly be called new, can it?

Discovering Another Yellow Wine - in Italy!

Readers of this blog and other articles I write will know that I’ve developed a speciality of wines of the Jura, France’s smallest wine region. Since Jura is synonymous with Vin Jaune, the curious wine from the Savagnin grape, I often mention and discuss it. But now, I’ve fallen for another curious yellow wine – this time from Friuli in northeast Italy.

We’re currently on an exploratory wine tour of Italy and spent three interesting days in Collio and Colli Orientali in the province of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The Collio region in particular, right on the Slovenian border has a growing reputation for its white wines, and as I’d never been to that part of the world it was high time to visit. Single varietal wines dominate though there are a growing number of interesting dry white blends under the simple Collio DOC label. Whereas Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon are particularly important, with some Chardonnay too, the region – like all of Friuli - is also known for its unusual indigenous varieties, most especially Friulano, previously called Tocai Friulano (a term now outlawed by the EU because of confusion with Hungary’s Tokaj) and still known locally as Tocai.

The variety that excited me on our little trip was Ribolla Gialla, which is especially prized when grown on ponca – a marly sandstone, flaky soil - in hillside vineyards on the Slovenian border near Gorizia, which gave the original name to this region – Collio Goriziano. On the Slovenian side (which we had no time to explore) where more is grown, the variety is called simply Rebula. Mentions of Ribolla Gialla go back to the 13th century but in the modern wine era of Collio, until very recently interest was mainly in the dominant international varieties. A revival of interest in Ribolla Gialla seems to have started in the 1990s with the legendary producer Josko Gravner focussing on the variety – sadly I have yet to taste his wines, but I was able to taste a few good examples from some of his neighbours in the villages of San Floriano del Collio and Oslavia.

I learnt most about the variety from Franco Sosol of Il Carpino whose explanations in Slovenian were expertly translated by his son Manuel. The family estate has 2.5 hectares (about 7 acres) of Ribolla Gialla and he explained that the variety needs to grow in ponca soil and have plenty of sun, ideally with a warm sunny period in late summer as it is a fairly late ripener. In these conditions it will shrivel and concentrate to some effect, important because it is very vigorous. Il Carpino practice a green harvest to reduce yields, something that appears to be crucial with this variety otherwise it produces a high acid, ‘green’ wine rather than the yellow colour and flavour that gives the grape its name. After tasting a young 2008 named Vigna Runc, dry, delicate and fresh with a distinct dried apricot character, made to be bottled, sold and drunk young, we moved on to a more traditional style under the main Il Carpino label. The 2006 Il Carpino Ribolla Gialla 2006 was a later harvest selection and the grapes spent six days macerating on the skins before fermentation in large old oak botti (big casks). The colour was amber and the exotic nose showed flowers, honey and almost crystallized apricots. The very dry acidic finish was backed up again by dried apricot fruits and had a really long finish. Franco explained that the variety has very thick skins that keep most of the flavour, hence the long maceration which was traditionally practiced in the area and is now undergoing a revival. He has used this method for his ‘better’ version since 1999 and noted that in 2007, he left the grapes with the skins for 45 days! They used to age the wine in barriques, but have changed, as many have generally in the region, to the less obvious large oak casks and now the oak doesn’t dominate the delicate flavours of the grape. I loved the wine and when I drank a bottle a week later, described it as positively Roman – it needs food and can be matched with strong fish dishes or we matched it successfully with Pecorino cheese.

Another winery we visited, Primosic has a relatively huge 24 hectares (60 acres) planted, more than half their estate and Marko Primosic drives a yellow Porsche 911 to help promote the variety. They too produced two versions, a fresh one and one with 10 days skin contact and ageing in 500 and 700-litre casks. The latter was extremely yellow in colour, with spicy oak melding with the deep fruit flavours – the tannin was most noticeable and the wine definitely needs ageing. A completely different version is made by Tercic who includes 10% of the local Glera grape (a relative of Prosecco variety) in the blend. Tercic prefers to leave the grapes hanging longer on the vine and then practices a shorter maceration to produce a more obviously fresh fruitier style.

Whether made in the fresh style, or the more unusual long-maceration style, I left the Collio, smitten with Ribolla Gialla and can’t wait to taste some more if I can find any outside the region. Our trip in Collio, which I also intend to cover in a few weeks on the Wine Travel Guides blog was much enriched by an excellent, newly published book by Carla Capalbo, Collio – Fine Wines and Foods from Italy’s North-East. If you are visiting the area or are simply intrigued by its history, food and wines, don’t fail to buy a copy. Carla will be writing travel guides on Friuli to expand the wine regions of Italy on Wine Travel Guides.

Credibility versus Saleability – Wine Report

Back in 2002, when Tom Stevenson asked me to write on Jura and Savoie for his new annual guide Wine Report, to be one of 40 contributors, I was flattered, but resigned to doing what I knew would be a huge amount of work for not great financial return. But I didn’t know what real pluses it would bring me and how unique in the overloaded world of annual wine guides and how well respected the guide would be. I also hadn’t taken in the level of credibility writing for this unusual guide might convey onto me, as one of the contributors, something always hard to measure.

Especially now, while the future of Wine Report remains uncertain for reasons I will explain later, it reminds me of another huge wine project in my life – that of Master of Wine studies, which I embarked on in 1987 and concluded (the polite way of expressing ‘gave up’) in 1991. I never regret embarking on the journey to become a Master of Wine even if I never received the accolade … I passed the Theory exams in 1989 on the 2nd attempt, re-took the tasting section twice more and then said “enough is enough”. I gained a huge amount – new friends and colleagues together with a truly deep understanding of every aspect of wine and – even if I never reached the required standard in tasting - a really methodical approach to tasting. I was teaching a consumer wine class on the evening after the last time I took the exam and explained that it was unlikely I would have passed having seen the so-called ‘crib sheet’ listing the wines we tasted. One of the regular weekly students – a man of a certain age and thus wisdom, perhaps – asked me what I had hoped to gain by becoming a Master of Wine. “Credibility, I guess” was my hesitant answer. “Don’t worry” he said, “you’ve got plenty of that already”.

So, back to Wine Report. If you’ve never bought a copy and you love the world of wine, buy the 2009 edition now – just click on the Amazon link opposite and you will get a bargain. It’s packed full of passionate writers sharing their inside knowledge about the world of wine. Of course, it also includes vintage reports and lists of ‘greatest producers’, ‘best value for money wines’ and other more standard annual wine guide features, but its strength lies in the news stories and the opinions shared by the contributors. Tom has always encouraged us to be topical, outspoken and controversial, and this is the strength of the book. The other quirky point that has, I believe, aided its credibility, but perhaps not its sales potential, is that Tom allowed equal or sometimes greater space to small or lesser-known wine producing countries and regions than he did for the well-known ones. So, I was able to say proudly (with a grin) to the producers of Jura and Savoie, that they should be proud firstly that they were even included into an annual guide book that covers the world and secondly, my chapter on Jura and Savoie is, every year, of a greater length than the Bordeaux chapter or the California chapter to name just two. Other relatively long chapters include those for Luxembourg, Lebanon and Asia for example. It’s simple really – everyone knows the news and views on Bordeaux, Burgundy, California and Australia already don’t they? But Jura or Lebanon?

This post is not a review of Wine Report – you can read that by others less biased than me, or just take it that the fact it won ‘Best Wine Guide/Wine Book’ for two years running in the Gourmand International Awards is accolade enough. This is however, a little lament. There will be no 2010 Wine Report – the publishers from the 2004 to 2009 editions, Dorling Kindersley (owned by Penguin who in turn is owned by the owners of the Financial Times) have pulled out and we’ve known about it for some time. Tom is battling valiantly in these difficult economic times to finalise an agreement with another publisher. In my humble view, Dorling Kindersley never promoted the guide properly: they did not secure foreign distributors to enable translations to be done (the original intention), nor did they promote it sufficiently to the extended wine trade around the world and to keen wine amateurs and geeks at whom really the book is aimed. This is not a beginners’ wine guide nor was it ever intended to be. So, simply speaking, there were insufficient sales.

Working on Wine Report forced me to discover in depth about the fascinating, but bizarre Jura wine region; it also encouraged me to write in a journalistic and critical style that I didn’t know I was capable of; and it was one of several things that provided me with inspiration to create the Wine Travel Guides website. Wine Report is widely respected by our peers in all parts of the English-speaking world and I salute Tom for the original inspiration and all the hard work. You can find his own insightful chapters on Champagne and on Alsace freely available to download as PDFs on Wine Pages (owned by another Wine Report contributor, Tom Cannavan who writes one of several non-regional chapters – his is on Wine on the Web).

This whole issue gives more worry food for thought to would-be wine book writers and publishers. I can only express the hope that Tom finds a means to bring us all together again to publish the 2011 edition and that credibility in the end will lead to saleability.

Time Travel – Tasting Liquid History

It’s always a fascinating experience to taste a wine that’s older than you are, but inevitably as time goes on, well, it becomes increasingly difficult (and/or expensive). A few weeks back over a wonderful themed dinner with winey friends who were all somewhat older than me, the culmination of our meal was a wine older than all of us.

The 70-year old bottle was one of a case of Massandra Gurzuf Rose Muscat 1939 I purchased at the very first Sotheby’s auction of the Massandra Collection 19 years ago. At the time I developed a somewhat rash urge to buy into an exciting story to which I felt connected in several ways, and I was able to buy with my palate pre-tuned, as the very wine was available to taste at the amazing pre-auction tasting.

The Massandra Collection refers to a unique collection of mainly sweet and fortified wines from what was originally the Tsar’s vineyard in the Crimea. Built into the cliff-side, the huge and valuable cellar, which held significant quantities of each wine produced from every vintage back to the 1880s, was protected through the Russian Revolution and later by Stalin and beyond. Eventually in the Gorbachev era in the late 1980s, they decided to put some of the collection up for sale. For the full history, read the introduction to more recent auction sales held by Bonhams in both London and California in 2007.

My personal connections were tenuous, but important to me. My parents had travelled to the Crimea as part of an exciting longer trip in the USSR in the 1970s and my mother remained fascinated with anything cultural to do with what was then known as ‘Russia’. In 1989 I was working part-time on my first publishing project on a wine book being written by the then wine director of Sotheby’s David Molyneux-Berry MW. He related to me the whole fascinating experience he had when going to visit the cellars and taste the collection of wine for the first time. In order to judge whether the wines were fit for sale at auction, over the course of three days, David tasted hundreds of wines going back over a century. He tasted in the cellars themselves, with a plate of apple slices laid out to refresh his palate between wines – all of which were sweet. I was inspired to buy, and chose what I could both taste and just about afford (if I recall correctly, I paid about £60 a bottle all in).

The first bottle I drank was a few months after purchase in 1990 having taken it to share with wine friends in California, who were offering me hospitality on a big trip there. It was amazing. The following year we drank a couple of bottles to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday and then at the end of the decade we had a couple of bottles to see in the new millennium. The wine, which was re-corked before shipping to the UK has never, ever disappointed – quite the opposite in fact. But, this time I was nervous. Since 1998 the wine had been moved about a little as I had moved house several times, and the packaging on this particular bottle had been damaged along with the wax seal over the cork and it was slightly ullaged (the level of wine being at the top of the shoulder).

After an excellent series of wines from vintages all ending in nine (the theme of the evening), which accompanied a simple, tasty meal, we moved towards the Massandra with increasing anticipation. We matched some personally imported mature Comté cheese with a youthful, but stunning Jacques Puffeney Arbois Vin Jaune 1999. I had opened the clavelin bottle earlier in the day, decanted it and served it at room temperature – and it had the desired effect in surprising our guests who had never before really enjoyed a Vin Jaune, even though they had tasted other examples.

We opened the Massandra fairly late having chilled it just slightly, nibbling at various desserts. The wine stunned us all with its liveliness, persistence and its general deliciousness. It’s a credit to the staying power of the wine and to the restraint of our friends, that I was able to re-taste it the following day and write the following detailed note.

The colour was of a bronzy-gold with a hint of pink in the middle (the Rose Muscat refers to a pinkish clone of the Muscat grape, not to a rosé wine). The nose revealed an incredible melding of maple syrup, toffee and caramel with some simple perfume (was it rosewater?). On the palate it was sweet but not cloying, light in alcohol (this was not a fortified wine I believe) but rich with an exquisitely creamy honeyed texture. The acidity was pretty imperceptible though there was an almost sweet appley freshness that came through on the finish, which made me almost beg for the next sip.

Apparently these days you can take a tour around the Massandra cellars in what is now Ukraine and several prominent wine writers who have visited have written favourably about the terroir and about recent bottlings. Perhaps we will have an 'Around the Crimea' guide to plan a private wine tour there one day.

French Wine Industry Let Off the Hook

Subject to ratification by the senate, on Friday 6th March the French government gave a reprieve to wine tastings and wine festivals (see my previous post) in their proposed new health laws concerning alcohol sold through 'Open Bars'. (The term is used in France to denote - usually - student bars where a fixed payment at the door allows unlimited consumption of alcohol).

They also agreed on Monday 9th March to formally allow alcohol sales and promotion via Internet, though these will be subject to the same stringent conditions that the Loi Evin imposes requiring a warning statement. They have incidentally decided to raise the minimum age for purchase of alcohol from 16 to 18. The wine industry will live to see another day - just.

These decisions were part of a greater debate on reforms within the health sector in France. Much of the anti-wine discussion focuses on links between supposed heightened cancer risk and wine drinking. Tomorrow (11th March) results are due from a huge 3-year study in France on links between wine and cancer. Findings are expected to show, conversely, only positive protective effects against cancer from moderate wine consumption.

It is doubly ironic that whilst the health proposals were being debated, a different French government department announced the creation of a Wine Tourism Ministry - see Jane Anson's post on the New French Paradox.

Do French lawmakers really aim to ban Wine Festivals?

Just over a year ago I wrote here about the stupidity of the French lawmakers who had decreed that certain articles about wine had to carry a health warning just like advertising does in France. Discussions continued all last year about the subject of wine sales on the internet being technically illegal in France – a totally ridiculous situation for French producers.


This year, the French governments’ lawmakers continue to threaten the wine industry and Marie-Christine Tarby-Maire, president of the industry action group Vin et Société and also president of the Comité Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Jura, gave out a dire warning at the recent Percée du Vin Jaune festival. She started two separate speeches – one at a dinner of the assembled winegrowers and all who work with the Jura wine industry, and the other at a consumer dinner in celebration of the Percée – with the startling question: “Will this Percée Festival be the last one?”

The problem has arisen with a proposal from the Health Minister to ban what are called in France ‘open bars’ which are aimed at students who pay a small entry fee and can then drink as much as they like. These bars are often sponsored by spirits companies and are seen – quite correctly – as encouraging binge drinking. To ban these would be a good thing indeed, but the way the proposal has been worded would mean that wine festivals and salons des vins (wine exhibitions) where an entry fee is charged would also be banned.

Once again, this is an extraordinary situation for the wine industry in France, a country that foreigners usually associate with all that is moderate and convivial about wine drinking. There are proposed amendments on the table, however, if this law is passed in its current state it will be a serious blow to the whole wine industry; it could also have ramifications on wine tourism in general as tastings offered by wine producers at the cellars might be affected. The wine industry is a huge contributor financially and culturally to France; it is crazy that ill-informed lawmakers are seeking to damage it so fundamentally.

Support the French wine producers with a wine tour in France this year. You can use the discount code D1WL09 for a discount to subscriptions on Wine Travel Guides.

Wandering Educators interviews New Wine Editor

In case you want to read more about the creation and background to my site Wine Travel Guides you might enjoy reading the interview with me on the travel news and information website Wandering Educators. I love the look of this site and it has very spirited and energetic owners, so I'm proud to become their new Wine Editor and will submit a regular wine travel piece to go live on the last Thursday of each month.

Hope you can take a look at the interview - it was fun to do - you will also find a discount offer on the site for subscriptions to Wine Travel Guides.

Have you checked out the new Wine Travel Guides blog? And are you following me on Twitter yet? Every Wednesday or Thursday I run the Weekly Twitter Quiz with a slightly tricky question that you can answer on Twitter only to win a free PDF travel guide to a wine micro-region of your choice. Check it out this coming Wednesday (6pm GMT, 7pm CET, 1pm EST or 10am PST and whatever that is in Australia, New Zealand and everywhere else!). The winner and the answer in full is posted on the Wine Travel Guides blog as well as on twitter of course.

Oh, and I haven't told you before that at last we have two guides to the wonderful wine regions of Tuscany up on-line so you can plan your own wine tour in one of the most beautiful areas of Italy. Rioja in Spain is the next region to come on stream. It's all go at the office.