Santa Carolina reveals experimental project in Bío Bío

Having produced its icon wine taking inspiration from wines from the 1950s unearthed by an earthquake in 2010, Chilean producer Santa Carolina is looking south for its next innovation – producing País, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon from a tiny town in the southern province of Bío Bío.

Winemaker Andres Caballero

Winemaker Andres Caballero began an experimental project in the southern town of San Rosendo in Bio Bio in 2016, buying in País, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon from the town’s growers to “learn” about the region and its varieties.

“Our target is try to give something to the community,” Caballero explained during a tasting with the drinks business. “The people there live hand to mouth. This is a very small project that we have been doing since 2016. San Rosendo is in the souther so its cool. They have warm summer but very short.”

For now, Caballero has made a single varietal País, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from fruit grown in the coastal town from both the 2016 and 2017 vintages, with the latter only bottled last week.

“In 2016 they called and said ‘we are sending the fruit’. They send it when they pick it, because it’s very basic. The first time I tried the wines I said they were nice but needed something else. I wanted freshness. This year I picked one month earlier,” he explained.

The rediscovery of País, a variety indigenous to Chile, and efforts to rescue the variety from obscurity, have been one of the industry’s priorities in recent years.

Chile is home to País vines that are more than 100 years old, however the variety has struggled to gain a foothold in the market due to its relative lack of colour, very dry profile and simplistic aromas. Often, carbonic maceration is used in its production, as with Gamay in Beaujolais. However this method can be over-used, believes Caballero.

“For me you can get very confused on the flavours and aromatics when using carbonic maceration. It’s overused with Pais,” believes Caballero. “Here, it is traditional fermentation. Chilean winemakers are making a lot new things with Pais and that’s great, but it is not an easy variety.

KING CAB

“For me Cabernet Sauvignon is the king and there’s a good reason why a lot people buy it. Pais is a variety that we need to learn more about if we want to produce a wine that we can really sell well. We need to learn which are the best areas. It has potential for sure, but we need to find that identity of Pais so we can really show the consumer something that they can understand easily. You can start from the bottom and do many things. We are building it step by step, but there is a big opportunity.”

Currently, the 2016 and 2017 vintages of Pais, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon from San Rosendo are available only to taste at the winery’s cellar door in Santiago as part of its ‘Cuarteles Experimentales’ range. Next year, Caballero plans to make a red blend from the varieties, which if successful could become the producer’s first commercially available wine from San Rosendo.

Another variety Caballero is keen to develop is Semillon, which Santa Carolina only began producing with the 2014 vintage, sourcing grapes from Apalata in Chile’s Colchagua valley.

“There are a few wineries that are trying to rescue Semillon. Our idea is to not produce a single varietal Semillon, but like Bordeaux use two varieties to blend; Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. I think the word Semillon is difficult  its difficult for the commercial guys. That’s why we are bottling a little bit by itself but our idea is to produce a white blend. That way it will be much easier to sell.”

EARTHQUAKE ICON 

Caballero was in London to host a vertical tasting of wines from the 1950s and 60s discovered in a cellar following the 2010 earthquake in Chile. Along with these wines, discovered in a formerly hidden compartment of the underground cellar, old documents explaining the vinification techniques used by Santa Carolina in the 1950-60s were found.

This prompted a two-year project to create the winery’s new icon wine, Luis Pereira, produced from its Bloque Herencia vineyard – a field blend vineyard in Chile’s central Valley with and average vine age of 70 years – designed as a refuge for pre-phylloxera old vine material that arrived in Chile between colonial times and the 19th century.

Named after the company’s founder, Luis Pereira was first released to coincide with Santa Carolina’s 140^th anniversary in 2015, representing the culmination of two year’s research into the producer’s oldest vineyards, including genetic profiling of pre-Phylloxera era plant material.

Luis Pereira’s maiden vintage, the 2012, was thus an interpretation of the brand’s 1959 vintage winemaking style, made predominately of Cabernet Sauvignon, but also Cabernet Franc, Malbec and old vines including Romano, with this year seeing the release of the 2013 Las Pereira.

“The Luis Pereira embodies the fusion between the past and the present,” said Caballero. “With this latest release I have returned Santa Carolina’s historic icon wine to its original 1950s style but with newfound innovation and inspiration.”

As part of his effort to replicate this character, Caballero picked grapes a full month earlier than the producer would usually harvest its Cabernet Sauvignon. A “long, cool fermentation” is employed, with the wine then spending a year in old barrels, followed by a further year in larger foudres.

Limited samples of the 2012 and 2013 Luis Perreira have been made available, however 80% of the stocks produced, which amount to around 500 cases each, will be held back for many more years, with an RRP of around £100.

A map detailing the varieties within the Bloque Herencia vineyard