Getting more Chile

Chile’s natural boundaries, the Pacific, the Atacama Desert, Antarctica as well as the Andes have helped to keep out that horrid little vinekilling louse, the phylloxera. The result is that Chilean winemakers do not have the extra expense of grafting their vines on to resistant American rootstocks, a practice common in most other parts of the world. In addition, labour costs are reasonably low and because of the very few vine diseases, sprays and chemical treatments are rarely necessary.

Santa Helena, Sauvignon Blanc 2007, Chile (white). (Bt. 305 Friendship)
This is an attractive wine from Central Valley, made by the Santa Helena Company, founded in the 1940s. Sauvignon Blanc wines are often described as “zesty” because they’re often aromatic with flavours of citrus fruits, apples, pears and sometimes pineapples. The grape gets its name from the French word “sauvage”, which means “wild. And in case you’re wondering, Saint Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great.

Pour some wine into the glass and you’ll see a delicate straw colour with tinges of green. A few degrees lighter and it would be almost colourless. There’s a pleasing greengrassy aroma of gooseberries and tropical fruits if you take the trouble to swirl the wine around in the glass long enough.

The wine has a pleasingly light body, plenty of fruit on the taste with a hint of herbs and pineapple; “fruit forward” as they say in the trade. There’s a good balance of acid too, which gives the wine a light spritzy quality and it has a long balanced finish. It’s probably the touch of acid that makes this wine so refreshing and it would make a perfect aperitif. It would also be good served chilled with shrimps, white fish or salads. You could even drink this with blue cheese. Yes, honestly!

By the way, there are huge differences in Pattaya wine prices, so you really must shop around, especially if you are buying several bottles. For example, Friendship sells this Santa Helena wine at Bt. 305, but another well-known supermarket charges Bt. 455 for the same thing. Another outlet (which will have to remain nameless) charges a staggering Bt. 580. Saint Helena, who was evidently a champion of the poor, would have been horrified.

Concha y Toro, Reservado Cabernet Sauvignon, Chile (red). (Bt. 365 Foodland)
The Chilean firm of Concho y Toro was established in 1883 and named after a local politician and businessman Don Melchor Concha y Toro, who brought vines from France in the 19th century. It is now one of Chile’s most successful wineries. This year, several of its products won gold, silver and bronze medals in the prestigious World Wine Awards organized by the UK’s respected wine magazine, Decanter.

The Reservado Cabernet Sauvignon comes from Chile’s Central Valley and it’s a lovely ruby mediumbodied wine with an attractive fruity aroma (plums, I’d guess), and even slight hints of chocolate and mint. With a very reasonable 12.5% alcohol, the taste is full of dark fruit and as dry as you like, with a long satisfying finish. There’s no year mentioned on the label, so this implies that the wine is a blend of two or more years, but none the worse for that.

The tannins are soft and ripe and yet there is a pleasing firmness to the body. The wine would go well with red meats and pasta. It worked brilliantly with a creamy Tasmanian Double Brie – an excellent substitute if the real thing from France is too expensive. The wine tasted much fresher after an hour in the fridge. This is a splendid everyday wine and terrific value, because you can buy it for just over Bt. 300, if you shop around a bit. Incidentally, another of the Concho y Toro wines won 97 points in the magazine The Wine Advocate, the highest score ever awarded to any Chilean wine.

Cremaschi Furlotti Rosso Leggero Cabernet Sauvingon 2007, Chile (red). (Bt. 399 Friendship)
Now here’s a complete contrast in taste. Cremaschi Furlotti is not as you might think, some kind of exotic Italian dessert, but the name of a family that has been making wine since the 1800s. The winery has won many awards for its outstanding wines, most of them destined for export. The wines are produced from hand-picked grapes, irrigated by water from the Maule River that flows down from the high Andes towards the Pacific Ocean.

This is a very attractive, unassuming light red (as the name implies) from Chile’s beautiful Central Valley. Although it calls itself “Cabernet Sauvignon”, I am sure that there are other grapes in the blend, giving the wine a much lighter and softer body than you’d normally expect from a Cabernet Sauvignon. It reminds me slightly of those light wines from the Languedoc region of France.

The wine is dry but quite fruity, with a slightly peppery finish. At 12.5% alcohol, it’s an easy drinker that I’d be quite happy to swig on its own without the need to eat anything. It would make a very pleasing everyday red. If you prefer your reds with food, it would go easily with cheese, light red meats, pizza and pasta or, as the back label suggests, “full-flavoured pontly dishes” whatever they are.