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Five white grapes you might not expect to find in Chile
While Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay take up the lion’s share of white grape plantings in Chile, producers from across the country are experimenting with more unusual varieties.
According to 2022 data from the Oficina de Estudios y Políticas Agrarias (ODEPA), more than 14,000 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc are planted in Chile, making it the second-most cultivated variety after Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay falls into sixth place, with just over 10,000ha, and Muscat of Alexandria (AKA Moscatel de Alejandría) in ninth with around 4,200ha, though much of this is used for pisco production. As one goes further down the list and finds the less common, less popular white grapes, it offers an intriguing insight in Chile’s viticultural past, and a possible glimpse of its future.
Friulano

Taking its name from the north-eastern Italian region from where it originates, Friulano was planted at the Chateau Los Boldos vineyard in Cachapoal in 1936. One sign of the age of the vines is their spacing, indicative of planting before harvesting was mechanised. The vineyard did also use to have a sign indicating that this was the oldest plot in the vineyard, though that was stolen.
When asked how Friulano ended up more than 12,000 kilometres away from its home turf almost 90 years ago, Chateau Los Boldos’ head of sales and marketing Santiago Palacios Bacqué replied: “Nobody knows! I’m guessing there were some Italians around – in the southern part of Chile they call it the ‘Italian grape’.”
2022 was the first vintage of Chateau Los Boldos’ new expression of the grape as part of its Speciality Series.
Working with the grape in the cellar, winemaker Diego Vergara Eneros took inspiration from the orange-hued wines of Friuli: “I always wanted to bring something historic to the wine, and I imagined that in 1936 they fermented with skin contact. I also wanted the added texture.”
According to Bacqué, the Speciality Series Friulano has found its commercial niche: “We didn’t know if it would sell or not, but it’s like Sauvignon Blanc, but with less acidity and more mouth feel – it’s more gastronomic.”
Sémillon

Arguably best known from Bordeaux and Australia, Sémillon also has a long history in Chile, according to Viña Carmen winemaker Pablo Prieto: “There are a lot of old Semillion vines in Chile, mainly in the south, but still only 600ha – if you go 40 years back, it was the main variety in Chile, with 40,000ha.”
Presenting the Quijada Semillon DO Apalta 2021 in July 2024, which was yet to be released at the time, Prieto noted that Sémillon “needs time to show best”, though the variety’s signature oily texture was notable.
While this was a fairly straightforward expression of the grape, Viña Carmen does produce another which pushes the envelope somewhat further – its Florillon DO Apalta, the name a portmanteau of ‘Sémillon’ and ‘flor’, as in the layer of yeast which biologically-aged Sherry is matured under. In the case of the Florillon, it possesses the acetaldehyde, doughy nose that one expects from flor-aged wines, though with an acidity far more bracing than any Fino I have come across.
“Semillon either needs time in the bottle, or biological ageing – it keeps the elegance and texture of the Semillon, but it gets a nose of walnuts, almonds, dried apricot,” remarked Prieto. “The yeast eats glycerol and alcohol, making a very long, narrow wine.”
Florillon spends a year in what is effectively a solera system, though it is kept in solitary confinement in a shed separate to the main cellar due to fears that the flor could contaminate the other barrels.
Pinot Blanc

Whether you know it as Pinot Blanc, Pinot Bianco, or Weissburgunder, this white grape does not exactly have a huge presence in Chile, but it is still there.
Marcelo García, winemaker at TerraNoble, explained why he is especially keen on using Pinot Blanc as a blending component in the Algarrobo Sauvignon Blanc, cultivated in Casablanca Valley: “The idea was to produce a different Sauvignon Blanc, with 15% Pinot Blanc to give a new layer of aroma to give us more complexity. It’s a much more gastronomic Sauvignon Blanc, the classic green pepper, but with more flowers and citrus.”
“In the mouth the Pinot Blanc is much more important,” he continued, “it gives us more structure and complexity. 9% was barrel fermented in 500-600 litres barrels to give more complexity, but we didn’t want to lose the fruit – the fruit we have is what makes us unique.”
Terranoble’s 1.2 hectare plot of Pinot Blanc in Las Dichas, Casablanca is also where it gets the fruit for its Disidente Naranjo, an orange wine which also has a small percentage (8% in the 2021 vintage) of Pinot Grigio.
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“Because the Pinot Blanc plot is on the hill, you have different maturities, so we do three different harvest dates – the earliest harvest goes into the orange wine,” García shared.
According to the ODEPA data, only 7.4ha of Pinot Blanc are planted across Chile, making it the 48th most-cultivated grape variety.
Albariño

This Galician grape is, thanks in part to its growing popularity among consumers, starting to crop up beyond its homeland of the northwestern Iberia.
In Chile, MontGras has pioneered the cultivation of this variety, planting 15ha of it around five years ago in its Amaral Vineyard in Leyda Valley, just a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean. At ProWein last year, the producer showcased the fruits of its Albariño efforts – the eight instalment of its Handcrafted line, Rare Albariño 2023.
“Since the Pacific Ocean in Chile is cold due to the Humboldt Current, this area is fresh, never reaching more than 24°C, even in summer,” explained winemaker and CEO Adolfo Hurtado. “This freshness, combined with the red clay soils, naturally determines a high acidity in our Albariño.”
Fermented in stainless steel, aged on its lees in 2,000 litre foudres and sitting at a comfortable 12.5% ABV, the MontGras Albariño certainly delivers, but Hurtado argued that it has another attribute too – the unusualness factor: “If one could mention an advantage of Albariño over Sauvignon Blanc, it would be its novelty in the Chilean origin.”
MontGras isn’t the only producer to now be producing a 100% Albariño expression of Chilean origin – Montes, perhaps best known for its icon wine Montes Muse (which sells through La Place de Bordeaux), has just launched one as a new addition to its Outer Limits range.
Sourced from what is supposedly the only vineyard in the Zapallar zone, which is the coastal part of Aconcagua, it goes against the wisdom that Albariño does best in rainy areas, as that area is actually described as having a “semi-arid step climate”. However, morning cloud cover rolling in from the Pacific helps to significantly slow ripening.
The ODEPA data shows that, as of 2022, just 10ha of Albariño were being cultivated in Chile, but, given the commercial potential of this grape and interest in it from big players in Chilean wine, it would not be surprising if this figure dramatically increases.
Viognier

As the name might suggest, Mauro von Siebenthal, founder of the eponymous Viña Von Siebenthal, is not from round these parts – the Swiss ex-lawyer arrived in Chile a quarter of a century ago, finding Aconcagua to be a region with “no electricity, no water, no avocados, but a lot of history”.
Producing around 165,000 bottles a year from his boutique winery nestled between mountain ranges, he produces unashamedly “old fashioned” wines inspired by the Bordeaux and Rhône bottles he used to collect in his former life as a legal professional. Given that his range includes Carmenere, Bordeaux blends, and even a single varietal Petit Verdot (called ‘Toknar’), it seemed surprising that he was saving a white wine for last, explaining: “The Viognier is so rich, so oily, we need to taste it at the end.”
Clocking in at decidedly unfashionable (but all the better for it) 15.8% ABV, Von Siebenthal’s 2019 Riomistico Viognier goes against the perceived wisdom of what should do well Aconcagua.
“There were a lot of people who told us to forget white wine here, but I decided to try it,” he said, sniffing his wine and letting out a small chuckle.
Explaining the high level of alcohol, he explained that it was simply “what we got from nature”.
“We could harvest it earlier, but you will lose 50% of the complexity and the aroma, so it is important to harvest it when half is really ripe, and the half on the other side, not exposed to the sunshine, is more green – if it’s 100% ripe, it’s like vin santo, and if it’s too green, it has no aroma,” he said.
Von Siebenthal claimed that Riomistico was the first single-varietal Viognier in Chile, though now, he said, there are half a dozen coming from the country. Left on its lees and with regular bâtonnage, its texture is certainly full on, with the variety’s oiliness and his decision to let the ABV go as high as he dares, but he said that his philosophy was that it should in relation to the rest of the wine: “The balance is important – the question is not how much alcohol, it’s how much compared to the density of the other components.”
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