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bío-bío, chile, cinsault, itata, país, sémillon -

a different side to chile

Last week, I hosted Chilean winemaker Roberto Henriquez in my back yard here in California. As I tasted the wines, we spoke for an hour about the identity of Chile's wines and his work in the vineyard, both of which he spoke passionately about. He's based in Bío Bío, one of the more southerly of Chile's regions, and also makes wines from neighboring Itata. Although both Roberto and the wines are most definitely Chilean, they represent a different side to Chile. Winemaking in Chile goes back to the mid-1500s, after the country was colonised by the Spanish. Religious missionaries brought...

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argentina, chile, malbec, país -

south american wines

The two most famous wine-producing countries in South America are Argentina and Chile, although great wine is made elsewhere, most notably Uruguay. The wines can get overlooked, often seen as inexpensive, entry-level supermarket wines or simply poured by the glass in bars. But there is far more to South American wine, and I'm excited to have two new wines in the club to share some of the love. Argentina's wines became popular in the early 1990s because of Malbec, which was first planted in the country in the 1850s. It’s a French variety that had mostly been forgotten about, but...

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asturias, chile, dão, itata, portugal, slovenia, spain -

always on the look-out for the unexpected

In a wine world dominated by the same grape varieties made in more or less the same way, it’s always exciting to discover something different. More unusual, esoteric varieties are often connected to the history of a region, made by experimental mavericks, and stand out for the individuality of the wines. Take, for instance, Fran Ascencio and his Urogallo winery (named after a spectacular looking local bird) in Asturias in northern Spain. Asturias is a cool, wet, beautiful region, between Basque Country and Galicia, rising from the Atlantic Ocean into the Cantabrian mountains. It’s most famous for its cider as...

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