£6.49, $13
My deepest apologies that the principal wine today is available only in the UK but the fact that it is such an incredible bargain moves me to feature it.
Indómita Gran Reserva Sauvignon Blanc 2014 Bío Bío, developed expressly for the Co-op’s 2,000 stores throughout the UK by Indómita of Casablanca, was one of the most impressive Sauvignons I tasted in my extensive tastings in Chile recently. I marked it VGV for very good value when I thought it sold for £7.49 rather than a whole pound less. Please note that some Co-op stores may still be selling the 2013, which I have not tasted – although I thought this 2014 should last well into 2016.
Sauvignon Blanc is the most fashionable white wine grape in Chile (and South Africa, and Argentina) at the moment and I found some of the Chilean examples just too aggressively tart for comfort. But this one manages to be both mellow and refreshing on the nose. It’s intense aroma is in the grassy spectrum but there is no hint of tired, canned asparagus or body odour, aromas I find in some examples from Marlborough. It’s notably pure, ready to drink and is bone dry and only 12% alcohol. Ignore the 'Gran Reserva' bit. Chileans are sticking this on all sorts of labels at the moment.
It comes in a conveniently screwcapped bottle but has the strangest label with a drawing of Indómita’s – ahem, striking – winery in Casablanca that looks to me a bit like a Tibetan castle. This means that it looks extremely like the label of Indómita’s Casablanca Sauvignon Blanc, which I don’t like nearly as much. (It smells a bit metallic somehow to me.)
In fact the fruit comes from the southernmost limit of the vine in Chile, from a vineyard near Concepcion that used to belong to Corpora, pioneers of Bío Bío Pinot Noir aided and abetted by Pascal Marchand. Alas Corpora is no more, but we can still enjoy this gem. The wine is vinified close to the vineyard.
Here’s what the producers have to say about it.
‘We own a property in the Bío Bío Valley [pictured below] close to Cabrero town. The estate is called Huinganal. The place is located 500 km south from Santiago and is considered the southernmost valley for wine production in Chile. Here you have the influence from the sea where the coastal range of mountains has its lowest altitude allowing the cool breeze of the Humbolt current to cool the valley and temperate days and nights that make the ripening process of the grapes longer than in other zones of Chile. Besides the climate, one of the most remarkable characteristics of this zone and estate is the diversity and complexity of soils, some in a flat part where we find more organic material and higher fertility to enrich the palate of the final blend and others located on slopes with poor granitic soils with clay and presence of quartz which add minerality and aromatic complexity to the wine. Vines are 15 years old average.
‘Wines are fermented in separate lots and then mixed in a final blend. Part of it is done in horizontal stainless-steel tanks in order to extract more compounds and get a better mouthfeel. During all the fermentation process we care for oxygen transfer in order to keep aromas and freshness to the wine.
'This wine was made especially for the Co-operative in the UK and we have been promoting it since then in order to get more distribution around the world but honestly that takes a bit of time.’
Americans may like instead to look out for the well-distributed Ritual Sauvignon Blanc 2014 Casablanca from the Huneeus family’s Veramonte stable. I was also extremely impressed by this fruity-but-dry model – but according to wine-searcher.com American stores are still selling the 2013, which I have not tasted, for under $13.
