Hot in Chile: The Maipo Valley
South America’s tastiest wines have long come from Chile, and Chile’s best come from a small valley called the Maipo.
The quilted acres of the Maipo Valley have the benefit of hot, arid days, and cool night air descending from the Andes. Maipo Valley wines have a cosmopolitan angle, too – they’re made close to the big city (Santiago), and have some very hoity-toity European relatives. Jill warms us up to Chile.
Goes great with: meat off the grill, glass stains on a map, an aprés-hike foot massage.
I was never good at Geography, but I could always name the country running down the west edge of South America between the Andes and the Pacific – it looked like a chili pepper.
Chile’s Maipo Valley, just ouside its capital Santiago, is its smallest, most cultivated, most famous wine district – as well as one of its hottest.
Gentleman farmers in the 1800’s planted cuttings of Bordeaux greats such as Cabernet Sauvignon here to make South America’s first notable wines.
These grapes made much tastier wine than the more common País grape, thriving in Maipo’s rainless summers and wide temperature differences from day–to–night. Whereas the French might fetishistically torture their vines for minimum yield and specific features, Maipo growers welcome the lushness of these wines – less kink and more drink.
They’re also a fraction of the price of their fancy French cousins. One classic Maipo Cabernet is 2006 Concha Y Toro Casillero del Diablo – a devil of a wine. As you swirl, smelling coffee and dense fruit, think about this unexpected émigré, ripe and happy in the foothills of the Andes.