Chile – how do the 'little' guys perform?

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A common complaint about the Chilean wine industry is that it is dominated by a handful of large wine companies. Indeed, the admirable new statistical compendium Global wine markets 1961–2009 (available as a free download here) shows that four bottles in every five of Chilean wine are sold by the three big companies, the Concha y Toro group, the Santa Rita group and the San Pedro group.

Presumably as a response to this domination, Wines of Chile in the UK organised tastings in Manchester and London recently entitled The Pequeñas – The Boutique Wineries of Chile. Rather unfortunately, the...