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WINE OF THE WEEK: Veramonte Organic Carmenère Reserva 2019, Colchagua Valley Chile

Feb 18

WINE OF THE WEEK: Veramonte Organic Carmenère Reserva 2019, Colchagua Valley Chile

£8.04 (on offer), Ocado I was going to recommend Veramonte's spicy, velvet-textured Carmenère anyway, but there's even more reason to do so now it's on offer, down from £11.49 until 16 March. Alongside the inviting fresh bay-leaf spiciness, typical of Carmenère, a whiff of violets drifts over generous red fruit, streaks of capsicum, smoked paprika and coffee (three more of the grape variety's trademarks) and a clean, slightly salty, savoury finish. Veramonte's Carmenère viney

WINE OF THE WEEK: Waitrose & Partners País 2019, Maule, Chile

Oct 8, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Waitrose & Partners País 2019, Maule, Chile

£7.99, Waitrose A juicy, soft, low-tannin, pale red with strawberry and white pepper flavours, a swish of orange and a stony mineral burr. Delicious. It could stand in for good Beaujolais, or Pinot Noir or Etna Rosso, although it's made from a grape variety that has no connection with any of them: País. No need to be surprised if you're not familiar with País. Most people aren't. What might surprise you is that it has long been Chile's second most planted variety. Where has i

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, Maipo, Chile

Sep 24, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, Maipo, Chile

£7.50, The Wine Society In a tasting of 20-plus wines from The Wine Society that included, among others, an excellent Brézème rouge, Barolo, Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (the two latter in the Exhibition range) and Shaw & Smith Adelaide Hills Shiraz, I wasn't expecting to be bowled over by the £7.50 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. But I was. Yes, bowled over. I'm not remotely suggesting it's on a par with those other four reds (variously priced between £16 and £26), but for sheer valu

A Pit Stop with Pedro Parra in Chile

May 13, 2020

A Pit Stop with Pedro Parra in Chile

The genie in the pit: Pedro Parra in one of thousands of soil pits (calicatas) he has dug, but this one is special: it's amid vines in Itata that produce his own wines “Chile is a great terroir used in a very boring way.” You always know where you are with Pedro Parra, soil scientist extraordinaire. They weren’t quite his opening words when I met up with him in Chile for the first time in a while, but they weren’t far off. He had already summarily dismissed Carmenère and a fe

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finest Peumo Carmenere, Valle del Cachapoal, Chile

Aug 22, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finest Peumo Carmenere, Valle del Cachapoal, Chile

£9, Tesco Carmenère is something of a Marmite wine. It has a leafy, herbal note that some people don’t like, especially in red wines, but I’ve always liked a fresh, sweet green element (if green sweetness doesn’t sound too contradictory) as long as it’s more like freshly picked bay leaves than green capsicum and, more importantly, as long it doesn’t dominate. In the case of Carmenère, the signature flavours include plummy, ripe, blackberryish fruit, a savoury, smoky soy-sauce

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finest Chardonnay Valle del Limari 2017, Chile

Nov 1, 2018

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finest Chardonnay Valle del Limari 2017, Chile

£10, but £8 on current offer, Tesco A new wine from a single vineyard, Lachica, in the Limari Valley, one of Chile’s most northerly wine regions. It's relatively close to the sea and has a dry, fairly cool climate – all good for wine growing – but even more critically it has some of Chile's rare limestone soils, which Chardonnay loves (think white Burgundy). The limestone influence shows in the characteristic mineral freshness. This wine, made by Marcelo Papa of Concha y Toro

WINE OF THE WEEK: Miguel Torres Reserva de Pueblo 2014, Secano Interior, Chile

Sep 21, 2017

WINE OF THE WEEK: Miguel Torres Reserva de Pueblo 2014, Secano Interior, Chile

£6.99–£9.95, Dylans Wines, Roberts & Speight, Dennhöfer Wines, Fareham Wine Cellar, Noel Young Wines A supple, juicy Pinot Noir-like red with soft, sweet cherry and strawberry fruit spiked with ginger and orange zest. It’s made from the red País grape, which only a few years ago no self-respecting wine producer would have mentioned. Even the name (País: country) is, let’s say, understated. País isn’t exactly sought after today, but in Chile, where it’s still one of the most w

WINE OF THE WEEK: Emiliana Natura Viognier 2015, Valle Central, Chile

Apr 13, 2017

WINE OF THE WEEK: Emiliana Natura Viognier 2015, Valle Central, Chile

£8.75, Oddbins I love the heady blossom and peach aromas of this organic white and its peaches-and-cream flavour and soft citrus-zest freshness, but Viognier isn’t always one of my favourite grapes. It can be a bit like the nursery rhyme: when it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad it’s horrid. In the wrong place it turns from aromatic beauty to flabby plodder almost overnight. What Viognier likes, and gets in the cooler parts of Chile’s Central Valley, is a good

WINE OF THE WEEK: Errazuriz Aconcagua Costa Sauvignon Blanc 2015, Aconcagua, Chile

Nov 10, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Errazuriz Aconcagua Costa Sauvignon Blanc 2015, Aconcagua, Chile

£8.99, down from £11.99 until 6 December, Waitrose Shimmering brilliance and seamless layers of flavour – beautifully expressive Sauvignon from a vineyard less than eight miles from the Pacific Ocean. Maybe it’s auto-suggestion but I find a sea-salty tang beneath the vibrant citrus, greengage and smoky, flinty flavours. Errazuriz’s more everyday Sauvignons are reliably good value, but this is more than the equal of a good Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé – and great value at the curr

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tierra Y Hombre Pinot Noir 2015, Casablanca Valley, Chile

Oct 20, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tierra Y Hombre Pinot Noir 2015, Casablanca Valley, Chile

£8.50, Marks & Spencer I was going to recommend Stepp Pinot Noir from Germany this week, but there's been a delay with the delivery and it has yet to reach the shelves, so I'm recommending the latest vintage of an old favourite from Chile instead. It's no exaggeration to say it has to be one of the best value Pinot Noirs in the world and each vintage is just a little better than the last. This won a gold medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA is the world's largest and

WINE OF THE WEEK: Loma Larga Lomas del Valle Cabernet Franc 2012, Casablanca, Chile

Jun 2, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Loma Larga Lomas del Valle Cabernet Franc 2012, Casablanca, Chile

£11.95, Berry Bros & Rudd Polished, bright, blackcurrant fruit, herby, currant-leaf freshness and plush, cocoa richness – a lovely example of a grape variety that rarely got a look-in on wine labels until recently. Now wine growers who have Cabernet Franc can’t shout loudly enough about it. It’s always been in Bordeaux, playing third fiddle to Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and in red Loires such as Chinon and Saumur, but suddenly it’s rocketed up the wine-grape charts. With

Go Grow it on a Mountain: extreme winemaking in Chile

Apr 28, 2016

Go Grow it on a Mountain: extreme winemaking in Chile

Tabalí's winemaker Felipe Müller East goes to extremes in Chile: first he planted vineyards within spitting distance of the Pacific Ocean. Now he's also making world-class Malbec way inland and way up a mountain The new vineyards at 1600 metres under snow in October When Chilean winemaker Felipe Müller planted Tabalí’s Roca Madre vineyard five years ago, he settled on no fewer than 11 grape varieties. It sounds like a kid let loose in the viticultural equivalent of a sweet sh

What does a winemaker do when he doesn't like his own wine?

Dec 2, 2015

What does a winemaker do when he doesn't like his own wine?

Marcelo Papa, winemaker for Concha Y Toro, Chile What a difference a year makes. It’s a statement of the obvious where wine is concerned, but this is a tale of two consecutive vintages where variation is not down to sunshine levels, rainfall, hail, diurnal temperature range, or any of the other myriad weather variables that affect or dictate the quality and quantity of grapes in any season. The difference between the 2012 and the 2013 Marqués de Casa Concha Cabernet Sauvignon

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Lot Series Apalta Colchagua Carmenère 2012

Oct 23, 2015

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Lot Series Apalta Colchagua Carmenère 2012

£7.99, Aldi Maybe you already buy wine at Aldi. If you don't, maybe you'll want to reconsider… At a tenner, the red I've chosen is one of the most expensive, part of the limited-edition 'Lot Series', but I can recommend a red at £3.79 if all you need is a simple, soft, party wine (Toro Loco 2014 from Spain - and don't bother trading up to the more expensive Reserva version). The sophisticated Lot Series Carmenère is a true expression of the grape variety that Chile has adopte