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Tag: Itata

Wine of the Week

Delicate Chilean bargain

This week’s wine is a bargain, a delicate Chilean red at an exceptionally low cost. I really don’t understand why it retails this cheap (149 NOK, 10.000 CLP in winery). Maybe that is why it hasn’t got more recognition.

Juan Segura is a family-firm, now in its 5th generation, in the Itata valley, not far from the city of Concepción. They make wines in the same line from cinsault and carignan. This one is from the variety país, from up to 200 years old bush-pruned, dry-farmed vines. The wines are labeled with DO Secano Interior.

Juan Segura País 2021 (Empresas H. Segura)

Ruby red. Aromas of red fruits (cherry, raspberry), red apple, herbs (nutmeg). Fresh and vibrant in the mouth, juicy, with a delicate structure, quite long. Serve a bit chilled.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

De Martino old vines white

De Martino has been an important player in the development of Chile’s modern wine history. In 1996, De Martino became the first producer to register, produce and export wine from the carmenère grape. In 2008 they converted all the vineyards to organic farming and in 2009 De Martino became the first winery in Latin America to become carbon neutral. They work dedicatedly to find the best and oldest vineyards and make site-specific wines with a clear grape character.

De Martino’s grapes should only come from organically grown vineyards without use of chemical substances, the vines should be ungrafted, the grapes should be harvested before they become too ripe, the wines should only be fermented with native yeast and only stored in containers that do not show influence of oak.

The vines for this wine were planted in 1905 as free-standing ungrafted plants on granite-rich soils in the cool mountain coastline of Itata. The vineyards are located about 18 km from the sea on hillsides. The grapes are muscat 70% and the rest corinto, or chasselas, 110 years of age. They were hand-harvested and spontaneously fermented, and matured on lees. It’s a single vineyard called Guarilihue.

Gallardia Old Vine White 2016 (De Martino)

Light yellow colour. Aroma of apricot, white flowers, herbs (nutmeg), citrus (lime). Medium bodied, dry, with a fresh acidity and some minerality.

Price: Medium

Food: White fish, shellfish, vegetables, light meat

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Wine of the Week

Recovering the Chilean past

Nobody talked about the rolling, undulating landscape of Itata, the place where the original Chilean vineyard is believed to have been located (near port city Concepción, south of Maule and north of Bio Bio, both more well-known areas). But the earthquake of 2010 can stand as a metaphor for the country’s new path in wine, because when tidying up one have to look upon what has been at the same time as scheduling a future. And while much of the work had started before, many projects began to come to the surface around that time.

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In addition to the rediscovering of the Itata region the use of clay vessels is also experiencing a revival. The De Martino family has been influencial in moving away from standardising practises in winemaking, like harvesting too ripe, using herbicides, over-extraction, new oak barrels, enzymes, cultured yeasts and micro-oxygenation – and yes, bringing the clay vessels back to the spotlight.

The tinajas arrived in Chile with the Spanish conquerors. However, as the historians note, the craftmanship involved also had lines back to the ceramic traditions of the continent’s native inhabitants. There is a theory that alcohol was stored in tinajas in Chile 3.500 years back in time. (Read more here. As for clay vessels, there are a lot on this blog, most notably in this piece about tinajero Padilla in Castilla-La Mancha.)

de-martino_10-copia Tinajas in De Martino’s cellar

The first version in De Martino’s Viejas Tinajas series was the Cinsault, a very early classic in Chilean vinegrowing. It’s what one would call “dry-farmed”, a practise that is possible in certain areas with a heavy rainfall in winter and a soil with the ability to keep the water during the rest of the year.

2016-12-14-21-50-43 The second tinaja wine was a dark orange, almost brownish wine made from muscat. Here excellently paired with a Lancashire Bomb, an English cow’s milk cheese

Cinsault is a grape with fairly light skin and naturally low tannin and acidity. Most well-known are the lightly perfumed reds and the rosés. But with old vines and low yields it’s possible to get more flavour, often with a touch of flowery and strawberry aromas on top. As it’s able to withstand drought very well it has become popular, not only in its stronghold in Southern France, but also many places outside Europe, like North Africa, the Middle East, and in South Africa it’s famous for being one parent of pinotage, something of a “national grape” there.

This particular wine is made 280 meters above sea level, 22 kilometers from the Pacific, from ungrafted vines, hand-harvested, spontaneously fermented, and the must is aged for 8 months in 200 year old tinajas (big clay vessels without handles).

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Viejas Tinajas Cinsault 2014 (De Martino)

Cherry red. Smells of quite mature red berries (raspberry, strawberry), somewhat earthy with some white pepper. It’s well-structured with a tannic edge, and also shows a cool, fruity, somewhat graphity taste, and a good length.

Price: Medium

Food: Beef and other tasty meats, possibly with creamy sauces

 

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