If I ask you what comes to mind when I say Chilean wine,
what pops into your head? I am betting that excitement, experimentation and
risk-taking are not at the top of the list. Perhaps you are thinking more along
the lines of reliability, good value and consistency?
If ever I find myself a contestant on Pointless and the
category of Chilean wine comes up, I reckon I’ve got that round pretty well
sewn up. Never mind that neither occurrence is ever likely to happen.
But back to the matter in hand. Given my hypothesis viz a
viz wine from Chile, what would drive an established producer, with a proven
track record of critical and commercial success for their international style
wines (for want of a better description) to turn their back on all that? What
happened to “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Marcelo Retamal, Iron
Maiden-loving winemaker at Chile’s De Martino winery for the past eighteen
years, puts it simply: he didn’t enjoy drinking the wines that he was making.
They represented what he now calls “the Dark Side”.
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| Marcelo Retamal and some of his large oak foudres |
He pinpoints 1998 as a year of change, when the arrival of
international winemaking consultants in Chile and demand from international
buyers led to a very different approach to winemaking from what had gone
before. The trend for soft, sleek and powerful wines meant that grapes were
picked later (up to two months later than previously) in order to get
super-ripe flavours, which in turn led to the need for routine acidification to
correct the low acid levels in such ripe grapes; 100% new oak barrels and
selected yeasts became the norm in the winery.
Devotees of this column, should there be any of you, might
recall that I wrote about De Martino’s wines back in 2011 when Marcelo Retamal and
Sebastian de Martino visited the UK and told the world about their plans for
the future. Their 2010 vintages which I sampled then contained tantalising
hints of what was to come, but now they have come back to show us the full
picture with their 2011 and later wines.
To illustrate his point, Marcelo led a vertical tasting of a
Carmenère from De Martino’s Alto de Piedras vineyard in the Maipo Valley.
The 2005 epitomised what Marcelo calls “the Dark Side”: there
is plenty of oak and ripe, slightly pruney fruit, but also a swingeing tannic
structure, jarring acidity and a lingering flavour of alcohol (which stands at
14.8%). It felt like a wine at war with itself.
In 2010 Marcelo, in partnership with Sebastiàn de Martino,
decided that he had had enough of making what he now calls “bad wine”. That
meant no more new oak barrels, earlier picking dates, no acidification, use of
natural yeasts (that is naturally occurring yeasts which are present all around
us and provide, for example, the lift in sourdough bread) and lower alcohol.
The 2011 Alto de Piedras wine illustrated the new thinking.
It is light on its feet, with lively fruit and fresh acidity. Alcohol is down
to 13.3% and acidity is naturally higher, thanks to earlier picking (20 April
compared with 10 May in 2005, some 20 days earlier). The wine is aged in 5,000
litre foudres (huge wooden barrels) instead of new oak barrels holding 225
litres, so the effect of oak on the flavour is minimal. It demonstrates the
move towards a more authentic, natural and gastronomic style of wine.
De Martino’s other project is a number of wines fermented
and aged in old giant clay amphorae (known as Viejas Tinajas in Chile) from
vines grown in the southerly Itata Valley. It may sound wilfully eccentric to
use such antique techniques, which would not have looked out of place in
ancient Rome, but amphorae (and their modern equivalent, cement “eggs”) are
actually becoming, if not commonplace, at least not freakish, in wineries
around the world.
Itata is home to some of Chile’s oldest, dry farmed bush
vines and the De Martino Viejas Tinajas range comprises a dry white made from
Muscat and two reds, one a 100% Cinsault and the other a Carignan/Cinsault
blend. Production is not high – only 6,000 bottles of the Cinsault are made –
but it could mark the arrival of user friendly Chilean natural wine, with its
soft structure and lifted sweet/savoury flavours.
De Martino wines to
try
Gallardia Cinsault
Rosé 2013 - £8.95 from The Wine Society, £11.65 from Caves de Pyrène of
Guildford
From Itata, but not part of the Viejas Tinajas project, this
is a more mainstream, but effortlessly enjoyable wine. It looks and tastes like
a classic Provence rosé, with fresh, marine flavours and a gentle finish.
Gallardia Muscat 2012
- £11.65 from Caves de Pyrène
Muscat can be a bit of an in your face variety, with its
intensely grapey aromas, which can then seem out of synch with a dry palate.
Here, the aromatics are more restrained, with hints of candied fruit. It tastes
beautifully fresh and would be a real crowd pleaser (especially if you don’t
let on that it’s Muscat, to avoid people like me thinking they won’t like it).
La Aguada Old Vines
Field Blend 2011 - £22 from Caves de Pyrène (The Wine Society currently stocks
the 2008 for £14.95)
Planting an entire vineyard with a single grape variety is
actually quite new technology in many parts of the wine world. It was once
common practice to plant a range of varieties together (without necessarily
even knowing what those varieties were), though it’s now increasingly rare.
This vineyard is predominantly Carignan, usually a despised variety, thought to
bring nothing more than colour, alcohol and rusticity to a wine. Old,
dry-farmed vines such as this, though, can make wines of real character and
depth – and the smattering of Cinsault and Malbec help to give lift and
perfume.
