Carménère is a red grape from Bordeaux that was all but wiped out in France by phylloxera. Cuttings had already reached Chile in the 1800s, where it was grown and sold as Merlot until a French vine expert identified it correctly in 1994. It ripens late, and the wine is dark, plummy and peppery with a herbal, green-peppercorn note.

What do Costa, Andes and Entre Cordilleras mean on a Chilean label?

Since 2011, Chilean labels may carry one of three extra words telling you where in the valley the grapes grew. Costa means close to the Pacific, so cooler and fresher. Andes means up towards the mountains, with cold nights and firmer structure. Entre Cordilleras means the flatter middle ground between the two ranges, generally the warmest and softest of the three.

Why does Chile not have phylloxera?

Geography, mostly. The Atacama Desert to the north, the Andes to the east, the Pacific to the west and ice to the south have kept the aphid out, helped by strict controls on imported plants. As a result most Chilean vines grow on their own roots, rather than being grafted onto resistant American rootstock as they are almost everywhere else.

Does Chile make good white wine?

Increasingly so, and the reason is the ocean. Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay planted in cold coastal valleys such as Casablanca get morning fog off the Humboldt Current and afternoon sea breezes, which slow ripening and hold acidity high. Its first modern vineyards went in during 1982, when one Chilean winemaker gambled that grapes would ripen that close to the ocean, and the style has grown sharper and more confident since.

Chile Wine: Regions, Grapes & Styles

Chile is a ribbon of a country: more than four thousand kilometres from top to bottom and narrow all the way, with the Pacific on one side and the Andes on the other, the Atacama Desert to the north and ice to the south. Those barriers did something no other wine country can claim. Phylloxera, the vine-killing aphid that wrecked Europe's vineyards in the late nineteenth century, never got in. Chilean vines still grow on their own roots rather than grafted onto American rootstock.

The other Chilean story is a case of mistaken identity. For almost 150 years growers believed they were tending Merlot. In November 1994 the French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot, visiting vineyards near Santiago, noticed the vines were something else: Carménère, a Bordeaux variety assumed lost. Chile recognised it as a separate variety in wine law in 1998. Chile's own denomination system dates from 1995, and since 2011 labels may add Costa, Andes or Entre Cordilleras to say where in the valley the grapes grew.

What Chilean wine tastes like

Chilean red wine tends to land in a comfortable middle: riper and rounder than Bordeaux, yet with more grip and freshness than a warm country suggests. Cold Pacific air rolling inland and cool Andean nights keep acidity in the grapes even where the days are hot.

Cabernet Sauvignon from Maipo gives blackcurrant and dark plum with a distinctive minty, eucalyptus-like lift and a graphite edge. Carménère is softer and lower in acid, all dark plum and black pepper, with a green herbal note that tips into bell pepper if the grapes were picked before they were fully ripe. Merlot is plush and easy-going. Syrah from cool coastal sites turns peppery and savoury rather than jammy. Sauvignon Blanc is sharp and grapefruity, and coastal Chardonnay stays taut and citrusy.

Signature grapes of Chile

Cabernet Sauvignon is the most planted grape and the most dependable. Carménère is the one that makes Chile distinct: late-ripening, dark and peppery, and grown in quantity almost nowhere else. Merlot and Syrah fill out the reds, with Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir gaining ground on cooler sites. Among whites, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay both come alive near the coast. Chile replanted a great deal of its Sauvignon Blanc in the 1990s, once vine experts showed that much of it was really Sauvignonasse, a separate variety known locally as Sauvignon Vert.

Wine regions of Chile

Five Chilean valleys have pages here, and they vary from ocean to mountain as much as north to south. Maipo, on Santiago's doorstep, is the Cabernet Sauvignon heartland, with its finest sites in the Andean foothills of Alto Maipo. Aconcagua lies further north and is hot inland but cool near the sea. Casablanca, which sits administratively within Aconcagua, is the cold coastal valley that made Chilean white wine serious. Colchagua is warm, red-wine country. Maule, furthest south, is home to some of Chile's oldest vines, including dry-farmed País bush vines planted long before the modern industry arrived.

Three Chilean bottles to start with