Top 10 intriguing things about Chile and its wines

Chile and its wines

1. Chile has 460 Years of Wine Heritage
2. When the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, there was no phylloxera
3. Chilean vine rootstock (at the time) grew own-rooted, which turned out to be a valuable genetic material.
4. This allowed Carmenere to thrive hidden among Merlot vines for over a century, even after its near extinction in France from phylloxera.
5. Chile has llamas and ducks that roam vineyard rows, cleaning out intrusive weeds, while providing nitrogen to the soil.
6. Chile is surrounded by four geographic barriers.
   1. North – Atacama Desert
   2. South – Patagonian ice fields
   3. East – Andes Mountains to the east
   4. West – Pacific Ocean
7. It’s not the distance from the equator that is the dominant role in Chile, it’s its closeness to the Pacific Ocean or the Andes Mountains.
8. Chile has much greater diversity in soils and climates from east to west, than it does from north to south.
9. Geology:
   1. Soils are healthy and well-drained, with textures of loam, clay, sand, and silt
   2. Soils have a variety of origins. Examples are alluvial, colluvial, and fluvial
10. Sustainability is far more than a catch phrase. It is also much broader than taking an ecologically sound approach to grape growing. It involves close attention to detail in each of the three components required for a healthy company: the environment, the people, and the economic bottom line. More about Chile on Wines of Chile.