At this time of year, and particularly after the earth-shattering events which ushered in 2005, we are surely looking for comforting wines at modest prices. Chile has to be the prime source of inexpensive red wine today. There are drinkable wines available from these often over-productive vineyards selling for barely three dollars or three pounds a bottle. There is also an ocean of herbaceous, sweet, insipid liquid from Chile’s pest-free vineyard valleys, so there are no shortcuts to finding real value.
The most ambitious producers seem to me to be putting too much effort into making extremely expensive bottlings at the top of the range whereas Chile’s great strength is its ability to over-deliver in the lower-mid price range. (I’m sure the marketing people have a name for this category – super-premium or some such nonsense – but I’m talking about wines that sell for around £5-8, or $8-15, a bottle.)
I came across a very impressive new producer recently, Viña Candelaria. As you can see from their website www.candelariawines.com, glamour is not a high priority, but to judge from the wines themselves, French winemaker, co-owner and long-serving Chile hand Philippe Debrus and his team seem to have a good handle on where to source their fruit. The philosophy is to rent generally old vineyards all over the place and manage them, selling off the less successful fruit in bulk. They say they use pigeage, abhor pumping, aim for minimal intervention and all that stuff.
I thought this Carmenère was particularly good – ripe, round and deep-flavoured yet with real structure and some capacity for development – and it turns out to have been grown at Yaquil, a small but perfectly-formed terroir just next to Apalta near the winery in Colchagua. As we have seen from the wines grown here for Casa Lapostolle and Montes, this is a superb area for Carmenère, Chile’s signature grape so long sold as Merlot.
This wine seems to me to offer a bright new start to the year at an excellent price – though look out for my wine news article due out this Saturday featuring more than 30 great buys under £6 a bottle.
This Carmenère is currently on sale at Lea & Sandman for £6.95 a bottle (£5.95 if bought by the dozen). It is also available in Chile and in Holland via Tamis Wijnen and New York via The Wine List. Other importers who may carry it soon include:
Belgium – La Bodega
Denmark – Odense Vin Import, Vin Depotet, Norton
Brazil – Wine & Spirits
Japan – STI Corporation
Germany – Chilekatessen