Peter interviewed in Vida & Estilos

Back in February, following a whistle-stop tour around Chile’s wine heartlands, I was sat down for an interview by Alvaro Peralta Sáinz for Vida & Estilos.

The resulting piece is in Spanish, accompanied by a somewhat sombre photo portrait (I plead weariness).

To paraphrase, though, I was making the point that I’d been purposefully visiting the traditional heartlands of Chilean wine: Maipo, Colchagua, Curicó and Maule, rather than disappearing off to the more sexy or trendy regions like Itata or Elqui (which I’m lucky enough to know pretty well already and visited recently).

I wanted instead to re-assess the fundamentals of Chilean wine, like its Central Valley Cabernets and Merlots, and spend time on the ground with the people trying to improve and re-define these for the modern era.

It was a fascinating trip, tasting wines from over 80 producers, with top wines from the likes of Aristos, Lapostolle, Garage Wine Co, Valdivieso, Calyptra, Lafken, Casa Silva, Bouchon, Miguel Torres, Ventisquero, Tabalí, Trapi del Bueno, Sierras de Bellavista, Jofre, Santa Rita, Luis Felipe Edwards, Aresti, Huaso de Sauzal, Viñedos de Alcohuaz, Neyen, De Martino, Meli, San Pedro, Tara, Odfjell, Veramonte, VIK, Instinto del Maule, Bodegas RE, Undurraga, Garcia Schwaderer, 3 Monos, Vigneron Fine Wines, Viña Leyda, Viu Manent, Concha y Toro, Los Vascos, La Roncière and Koyle.

I made the point that the future for Chilean wine is in promoting its diversity and striving to make unique wines that other countries can’t emulate. Every good producer should be aiming to do what they do best wherever they are – whether its Colchagua Cabernet or Itata Moscatel. At the moment, we’re only just starting to see what Chilean wine is capable of – there is room for so much more.

But it was particularly good to see producers in Chile’s traditional wine heartlands aiming for more elegant, terroir-based wines. This bodes well for the future.

Click on the link below to read the article (in Spanish) on the NexNews website.

[Peter Richards MW interviewed in Vida & Estilos, published July 2018]