Meet The Pioneer In Environmentally Friendly Winemaking
Just how has Chile managed to lead the eco-friendly way? Its relative remoteness and arid climate mean common diseases like downy mildew are almost non-existent. This reduces the need for growers to spray their vines, making it easier for them to embrace environmentally sustainable practices in their vineyards and produce some remarkable wines.
Concha Y Toro Casillero Del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon
It wouldnt be a round-up of Chilean wines without a Cabernet Sauvignon. Casillero del Diablo is one of the most well-recognized and popular Chilean wine brands in the world, so when Im missing something thats quintessentially Chile, I turn to this dynamite of a big, bold red: their Cabernet Sauvignon. With a dense ruby color and heavy swirl, it encapsulates everything a Chilean Cab Sauv should be: full, dry, perfectly balanced, and rich in aroma and flavor, tasting of dark fruits and berries like cherries and black currants and counterbalanced by vanilla. And its a total steal at around ten dollars.
Editors’ Recommendations
Reasons To Choose Chilean Wine
Chilean wineries commit themselves not only to producing the best wines, but to the entire growing, harvesting, and the winemaking process. Chile has spent years finding the best plots of land for vineyards and experimenting with the ideal harvest seasons.
Many different winemaking techniques have come together to perfect some of the best wines in the world. There are plenty of reasons to give Chilean wine a try, but here are our three favorites.
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Montes Classic Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2020
For the last 30 years, Montes has produced wines in the Colchagua Valley. Though this bottle is made predominantly with Cabernet Sauvignon, it does include a splash of Merlot, which helps round out the sturdy tannins and provides a dash of acidity. The wine is ripe with red and black fruit fragrances and flavors. Notes of baking spices are prevalent in the palate. The finish is long and strong.
Maquis Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon
- Grape variety: 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc, 4% Carmenère, 3% Petit Verdot
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: A medium ruby appearance with a brick-red rim suggests a wine with a touch of bottle age. This wine has a lovely, open, expressive nose that is just starting to show some signs of development with stewed fruit along with plenty of sweet red berries and blackcurrant too, and a touch of tobacco leaf. However, the palate seems more youthful and quite tight, with firm but fine grippy tannins, a lovely cigar box character, some blackcurrant notes, a touch of stewed black cherry, along with black-pepper spice.
Score: 93
- Region: Colchagua
- Grape variety: 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Cabernet Franc, 17% Malbec, 11% Carmenère, 8% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: An inviting ripe creamy nose with a wonderful range of pure berry fruit, from intense cassis to fresh raspberry, even a touch of plum and pepper. In the mouth, there is plenty of fleshy fruit, from black cherry to raspberry, but also some bright plums, along with pepper and a touch of creamy vanilla. The finish is mouth-watering and dry with high tannins, and theres a touch of cedar as the wine fades, which it does slowly. This is a serious, fleshy, layered fine wine thats just starting to soften and open up.
Score: 93+
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Bursting With Flavor: 12 Of Our Favorite Chilean Red Wines
Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère are two of the most popular and well-respected varieties grown in Central Valley, Chile.
Originally brought to Chile by mistake from its native Bordeaux, these dark-skinned grapes have become a global favorite and are treasured for their plush tannins, deep berry fruit flavors and herbal tones.
Try these twelve Chilean reds that span from smooth to bold.
Casas del Toqui 2018 Gran Toqui Cabernet Sauvignon $35, 93 Points. Aromas of iron and minerals open this full and ripe Cabernet, then come leathery berry and black plum scents. This is full, smooth and a bit jammy and chunky in feel. Ripe, lusty black cherry, dark plum and oaky chocolate flavors finish with a dash of Chiles patented herbal spice. Drink this smooth operator through 2024. Via Pacifica Imports. Editors Choice. Michael Schachner
François Lurton 2018 Hacienda Araucano Gran Araucano Cabernet Sauvignon $35, 92 Points. The nose of this Cabernet gives way to red bell pepper, brick dust and baking spice aromas. A lush, deep and layered palate is jammy and thick, while flavors of peppery blackberry, fresh herbs and spicy oak arise. On the finish, coffee and mocha notes mix with ripe berry flavors. Drink through 2025. Winesellers, Ltd. M.S.
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Via San Pedro 1865 Single Vineyard Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
If its a 90-point wine youre looking for, Viña San Pedro has you covered. This Cabernet Sauvignon has consistently topped best wine lists for its incredible quality for value. Ripe black fruit leads the aroma on this medium-bodied wine, while the palate evolves into a concentrated crush of dark cherry with caramel and cocoa nuances that mingle with refined tannins in the finish.
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Valdivieso Caballo Loco Number 18
- Region: Central Valley
- Grape variety: Around 45% Cabernet Sauvignon. The rest is a blend of Carmenère, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Carignan and Pinot Noir, among others
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: The appearance shows some age, with brick red notes at rim. It has a lovely inviting complex nose with cedar, cigar box, stewed red fruits and some bright intense blackcurrant, with touch of vanilla and creamy coffee mixed in. The palate is soft, juicy, layered and delicious, with blackcurrant, sweet strawberry, and then fleshy black cherry too, pepper, vanilla, cedar, and roasted coffee beans. It has a fine mouth-coating tannin to give a dry finish after the layers of ripe fruit, some of which shows a touch of age. A lovely, complex, fascinating wine.
Score: 94
Cousio Macul Dama De Plata
Look: Deep Ruby.
Aromas: Candied cherries, raspberries, potting soil, menthol, cut wood, and strawberry jam.
On The Palate: Full bodied with BIG tannins. Notes of blackberry, campfire smokiness, wood, and dark chocolate on the finish. Its Nick Offerman in a glass!
Food Pairing: All I can think of here is steak with reduction sauce and mushrooms. In fact, the wine itself would make a tasty sauce.
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Best California: 2014 Heitz Cellar Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
Region: Oakville, Napa Valley, California | ABV: 14.5% | Tasting Notes: Bay leaf, Cedar, Red currant
Heitz Cellar is a jewel among Napa Valley wine producers, and Marthas Vineyard cabernet is their flagship bottle. Aged five years in French Limousin oak barrels, this wine is made with intensely purple grape berries from an exclusive Oakville vineyard situated within its unique micro-climatemeaning this is one exemplary wine. Every vintage since 1966 is coveted by collectors, but 2014 was a particularly good year for this cabernet.
Positively a classic with true cabernet herbal aromas of bay leaf, cedar, mint, and flavors of raspberry, red currant, sassafras, dark chocolate and eucalyptus. Sweet, svelte tannins find a long, dry finish supported by mouthwatering acidity. Best of all, you could be drinking this and enjoying it 50 years from now!
Santa Rita 120 Sauvignon Blanc
In Chile, Santa Rita is a classic table wine highly affordable but still of good quality. So imagine my surprise to find that here in the States, it was still one of the most affordable wine brands available from Chile, retailing between five to ten dollars at the stores where Ive found it. The brands offerings are good across the board, but for me, I always enjoy a chilled glass of its crisp Sauvignon Blanc. Light-bodied and refreshing, on the nose, it smells of citrus fruits like grapefruit or lemon, with herbaceous undertones, and taste-wise, its primary impression is of tropical fruits, peach, and citrus. Nicely balanced and smooth, it goes well with seafood, salad, and pasta I personally recommend enjoying it chilled, sitting outside, during the golden hour.
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De Martino Legado Reserva Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
This wine from De Martino was featured on Wine Spectators Top 100 wines list for 2021, and has consistently scored high ratings from critics. Acidic, juicy, and earthy, this medium-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon smells of red fruits and herbs. However, the palate is ripe with black fruit flavors that get a lift from a touch of toasted oak.
Le Petit Clos Clos Apalta
- Grape variety: 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Carménère, 28% Merlot, and 2%Petit Verdot
- Notes: Biodynamic
Tasting notes: A deep ruby appearance, and a lovely inviting nose with ripe but bright pure berry fruit, plenty of red cherry, some plums, then lovely pure blackcurrant too with some background cedar and chocolate. In the mouth, this is dense, youthful, powerful and chewy, with pure dark berry fruit, some black pepper spice and a lovely finish with cedar, a dry grip, and a touch of lifted fresh cherry stone and plum too.
Score: 94+
- Grape variety: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Syrah, 5% Carmenère, 5% Cabernet Franc
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: An attractive nose with a mix of red and dark berry fruits, notably blackcurrant, with cedar wood notes, and generally a lifted, fresh and youthful seeming character for the age its already four years old. In the mouth, this is very fine, classic, quite claret-like Cabernet blend, with cigar box notes, fine tannin, and a gentle fruit feel, with soft raspberry and blackcurrant characters dominating. While there are no crunchy greens, there is a hint of dried rosemary, and nice balanced fresh berry fruit nothing overripe, sweet or heavy here. It finishes with freshness, and a lingering cigar box character. Its a delicious wine in a restrained style by Chilean standards.
Score: 94+
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Best Overall: 2016 Chteau Pape Clment Pessac
Region: Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux, France | ABV: 14% | Tasting Notes: Cherry, Black truffles, Tobacco
Its hard to overstate the brilliance of the 2016 Château Pape Clément. The bottle is named after Pope Clement V, who owned the vineyard when he was just a scrappy upstart Archbishop of Bordeaux in the early 14th century, meaning the vineyards been in operation for over 700 years. Operated by esteemed French winemaker Bernard Magrez, this cabernet is a liquid luxury thats impossible to resist .
Complex and beguiling, this wine boasts a diverse flavor palate of dark fruits, cherry and fig, along with black truffles, forest floor, tobacco, and mocha and vanilla-tinged oak spices. It’s medium to full-bodied with fine-textured tannins, silken fruit and a long, elegant finish. In a word, exquisite.
Chteau Los Boldos Grand Clos
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: A wine with serious aromatics from dark berry fruit to cigar box, toast and tobacco. It has a delicious palate, with masses of cassis, and pure dark intense blackcurrant, with a touch of sweet black cherry too, then fine toast and cigar box-wood influence, with a note of cedar on the finish. It has fine high but ripe tannin, making it chewy but not drying, with persistence too. A serious structured smoky, cedary, cassis Cabernet at a reasonable price.
Score: 93
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Affordable Chilean Wines You Have To Try
With its temperate Mediterranean climate and diverse wine regions stretching from the arid north to the fertile central valleys, Chiles wine industry is renowned for turning these environmental blessings into consistently good, interesting wines that are in demand around the globe last year, Chile was the fourth biggest wine exporting country in the world. Known for decadent reds like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and zesty whites like Sauvignon Blanc, theres something for the average drinker, as well as under-the-radar natural wine producers and experimental vintners working with obscure grape varieties or aging methods to change up the scene. While living in Chile, I soaked it all in, especially luxuriating in the extremely budget-friendly prices. I could always find top-notch Carménère or Cab Sauv for dirt-cheap I could even enjoy Chiles boxed wine, a true achievement after so many disastrous encounters with Franzia in college. But after moving back to the States, I struggled to find good Chilean wines that werent boring or priced way out of my budget. Its been a personal quest to find the best and most affordable Chilean wines available in the States, and after much searching and drinking, Ive identified some consistent, budget-friendly favorites around the $10 range:
Cono Sur Silencio Cabernet Sauvignon Chile Valle Del Maipo
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting notes: This top end Cabernet expression from Cono Sur is a step up from the producers already excellent 20 Barrels Pirque Viejo expression, with Silencio using grapes from the best sites across the Maipo Andes, where Cono Sur, and its parent company, Concha y Toro have a plenty of vineyards. Only made in great vintages, Silencio is seen as a flagship for Cono Sur, and remains true to this producers wine style, which tends to ver towards something fresh in character, and hence this wine has plenty of bright red fruit, along with the usual concentrated cassis character of Maipo Cabernet, and attractive vanilla and cigar box barrel influence from 22 months in new French oak.
Score: 94
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Via Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Chile Valle Del Maipo
- Region: Puente Alto, Maipo Andes
- Grape variety: Cabernet Sauvignon
- Closure type: Natural cork
Tasting: Concha y Toros ultimate Cabernet expression, and Chiles pioneering icon wine, just keeps on getting better, with the latest release from 2018 building on an already exceptional 2017 vintage, which was the 30th in the brands history. In terms of style, this is a concentrated but balanced Cabernet, with the 2018 featuring plenty of youthful characters, from creamy and toasty oak, to pure intense blackcurrant fruit, but also an appealing hint of dried mint and a plum-like brightness, which bring a lift to the finish, along with the lingering, dry, fine, ripe tannins.
Score: 95+
- Region: Puente Alto, Maipo Andes
- Grape variety: 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Carmenère, 6% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot
- Closure type: Natural cork
Score: 96+
Tasting Challenge: Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon
Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon has become a real force to be reckoned with in the world of South American wine and beyond.
Chile is considered an ideal place to grow many of the most popular Bordeaux-style grapes. So what are the details behind this South American refuge of Old World styles? In this final installment of the Tasting Challenge, well find out.
What is the Tasting Challenge? The challenge is a way to improve your wine palate each week with 34 wines from 12 countries
Chile is known for its full-bodied wines, encouraged and nurtured by its warmer, mediterranean-style climate.
The Maipo Valley in particular has gained a reputation for Cabernet Sauvignon that are similar to those of Napa Valley, with
I mean, how were we not supposed to go for that? In the interest of trying something that could be compared to one of the best known Cabernet regions in the world, we jumped at the opportunity to grab a bottle from the Maipo Valley region.
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Best Cabernet Sauvignon From Chile Under $30
The South American country is the premier region for affordable and well-made red wine
Illustration by Pix
Looking for quality Cabernet Sauvignon without the expensive price tag? Set your eyes on Chile, the premier region for affordable and well-made red wine.
Over the last 30 years, wine production and quality in Chile have , leading it to become the fifth-biggest wine exporting country globally. And Cabernet Sauvignon is Chiles ruling grape its the most planted red variety, accounting for more than 20% of all vineyard plantings, according to Wines of Chile.
How did this long, narrow South American country gain its glowing reputation for quality wine at value prices? Well, it starts with the land itself.
A winemakers dreamland
In the 19th century, affluent Chilean travelers brought plantings back to the country from Europe. Cabernet Sauvignon, which originated in France, was among the first grapes planted in Chile along with other popular Bordeaux varieties like Merlot and Carménère.
Located on the west side of South America, Chile is wedged between the dry and hot Atacama Desert to the north and the cold Antarctic to the south. The Andes Mountains sit to the east, while to the west, Chile is sheltered by nearly 9,000 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline. Add in the countrys dry, warm summers, rivers, and climate-moderating mountains, and you get a winemakers paradise.
Cabernet Sauvignon regions
12 Chilean Cabernet to try:
What We Learned About Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon
For a long time, the main grape of choice for Chile was one called which was the Chilean name for the Spanish grape Listán Prieto.
The Spanairds were planting wine grapes on the hills of Chile as early as the 16th century! These wines were dense, meaty, and full of tannins. Think of Pais as the early house wine of Chile.
Eventually, however, winemakers began emulating the styles of France: And in the 20th century, Chile gained a reputation for fruity, easy, inexpensive Cabernet and Merlot.
And that reputation hasnt exactly gone anywhere, despite the fact that the quality levels of Chilean wine is steadily on the uptick: with their bold, complex Cabernet Sauvignons being invested in by some of the most lauded French wine producers in the world.
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