Santa Rita creates ‘most Chilean wine there is’

Viña Santa Rita is to launch “the most Chilean wine” available on the market today, according to the group’s winemaker, Sebastian Labbé.

Sebastián Labbé holds the position of ‘premium and ultra premium winemaker’ of Viña Santa Rita

Due to be unveiled later this year is a new blend comprising País – the first grape to arrive on Chilean shores – and Carmenère, the emblematic variety of Chile.

The wine will be bottled under Santa Rita’s Floresta label, which is generally used for the company’s more experimental offerings, and uses fruit from a historic vineyard in Apalta, Colchagua.

According to Labbé, the grapes were planted together in 1945 and have been farmed by various generations of the Muñoz family, who have supplied Santa Rita for many years under a long-term contract.

Labbé told db that he was “blown away” when he visited the vineyard, which contains the País and Carmenère planted together on clay soils. Unusually for Chile, the vineyard is managed without irrigation.

Labbé has harvested the grapes together, and, although the grapes don’t generally ripen at the same time, he said that that Carmenère isn’t green and the País is vibrant with lots of colour.

The grapes are then fermented together using native yeasts in open 400-litre barrels.

“It is probably the most Chilean wine there is,” he said, referring to the grape combination, which is around 60% Carmenère and 40% País.

Although Apalta is famous as a source of top Carmenère in Chile, the presence of País in this area is not widely documented, and Labbé admitted to db that he wasn’t aware that any was planted in the region before seeing this particular plot of old vines, which covers 10 hectares.

Just 1,600 bottles have been made of the Floresta field blend from the 2017 vintage, and it will be released to the market later this year.

The new field blend will be sold under Santa Rita’s Floresta label, which is used for its more experimental wines, like this barrel-aged Sauvignon Blanc from Ledya

In terms of the history of País in Chile, the grape originates from Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, where it is called Listán Prieto, and was taken to Mexico in 1540 by Spanish Franciscan priests, who founded several missions, explaining another synomyn for this grape – it is called Misson in North America (Robinson, Harding, Vouillamoz, 2013, Wine Grapes).

Listán Prieto was then introduced to Chile in the 1550s, and in the 1850s it was renamed País.

As for Carmenère, this grape’s history in Chile is shorter, but better known. Shipments of vines from Bordeaux, believed to be Merlot, were planted in Chile in the 1800s in the Alto Jahuel region of the Maipo Valley by viticulturists at Viña Carmen – Chile’s oldest winery.

After the devastation of the phylloxera bug in the 1850s throughout Europe, it was through that the Carmenère grape variety was extinct.

It was not until 24 November, 1994, that French ampelographer Jean Michel Boursiquot identified Carmenère vines, previously thought to be Merlot, growing in Viña Carmen’s Alto Maipo vineyards.

The discovery marked what would become one of the most important milestones in the Chilean wine industry, and since Boursiquot’s discovery two decades ago, Carmenère has grown from a few dozen hectares to almost 9,000 hectares in Chile, making the country home to 97% of the world’s Carmenère.

It is now recognised as one of the country’s signature grape varieties, while other European and New World countries like France and the USA have also replanted the variety.