Tierra del Vino

By Tim Padgett/The Colchagua Valley

On a continent known for samba and tango, Chile is the sober exception. But not for long, according to Mario Pablo Silva, managing director of the Casa Silva winery in Chile's Colchagua Valley, whose family's once staid operation is poised to make winemaking more of a fiesta. "By September," Silva gushes, "we plan to offer a high-end hotel with a restaurant, polo games during tastings, Chilean rodeo and horseback riding" beneath the Andes. Casa Silva and many other Chilean wineries are partying because their high-stakes bet--a red-wine grape called Carmenere--is paying off. Brought to South America from France in the 1800s, Carmenere was rediscovered in Chile in the 1990s as a delicious compromise between the robust Cabernet Sauvignon and the softer Merlot--and a chance to market a signature Chilean wine. Casa Silva has already made Carmenere its second grape, behind Cabernet; it accounts for a fifth of Casa Silva's growing exports and reaps international awards for labels like its Los Lingues Carmenere.

Carmenere is just one of the reborn grapes that South Americans are using to make their breakthrough wines--the ones to finally set them apart from French Bordeaux and Spanish Rioja. Malbec, another recently revived red-wine varietal, already represents a quarter of Argentina's wine exports and is hailed as the nation's new vinicultural emblem. "Now we intend to place Argentine wines among the best in the world," says Ernesto Catena, 37, leaping over Malbec casks at his family's Catena Zapata winery in the Mendoza region. Even Uruguay, whose coups until now were usually only military, is seeing its obscure Tannat reds served by U.S. sommeliers like Richard Di Giacomo at Miami's pan-Latin restaurant Cacao. "The real fun of wine is sharing new discoveries," says Di Giacomo. And as Casa Silva's plans show, the designer-grape push is broadening wine tourism for countries like Chile and Argentina, once remote outposts to all but Patagonian penguin watchers but now magnets for vini-vacationers tired of Napa and Burgundy.

New World winemakers have always chafed under Europe's 75% share of the $7 billion global-export market. But Australia, with the help of its Shiraz, managed to overtake France as the No. 2 exporter to the U.S., bested only by Italy. South Americans have also learned a little something about the value of an offbeat grape. Chilean wine exports top $500 million, but they're better known for value than vintage. And so since 1997, the area of Carmenere vines has risen 1,800% in Chile, to more than 15,000 acres and counting. (Terrunyo--the best Carmenere at Chile's largest winery, Vina Concha y Toro--costs about $30 in the U.S. Other highly rated labels, like Terranobles' Gran Reserva or Casa Silva's Los Lingues, can be had for less than $20.)

Argentina was forced to redefine its domestic wine industry when its citizens started drinking less wine a decade ago. Argentine producers--who make more wine than Chileans but export only 15%--had a choice: export or go bust. "We had to differentiate ourselves," says Bernardo Hoffmann, marketing director for the Wines of Argentina export association. Hence the rebirth of Malbec, a French migrant long dissed as merely a blending grape. Enologists found the grape to be a more complex varietal than once thought, especially in Mendoza's dryer, Andean conditions. Today, Malbecs like Catena's, from $10 to $50, score high with U.S. critics for their exuberant, fruity and floral styles. "We're aiming for the 25-to-40-year-old market," says Catena in his state-of-the-art winery, built like a Maya pyramid. "It's more aligned with the New World trend." Helped by the Argentine peso's 2001 devaluation, Catena now exports 85% of its wine, half of that to the U.S., and its once negligible exports are nearing $10 million.

More exports have brought more wine tourists: their numbers in Argentina's Mendoza have been up 35% in the past two years. Guided by enologists hired via Argentine travel agencies for $40 a day, tourists are descending on Mendoza's sprawling plain, where winemakers like Catena have polo teams to entertain wine tasters, and many bed-and-breakfasts sport spectacular views of the snowcapped Andes. At the Familia Zuccardi vineyard, guests at asados (meat-grilling parties) are treated to tango shows. The influx has also shone a spotlight on Mendoza institutions like 1884, which Restaurant magazine recently rated the world's seventh best restaurant, and the Park Hyatt, which offers wine-tasting salons as earnestly as other hotels advertise Internet service.

Chilean tourism is still affected by the image of the 1973-90 Pinochet dictatorship. But as part of the push to trumpet its newer, higher-quality winemaking, Chile is turning to wine tourism as a means of selling a brighter national identity. Colchagua now has a Ruta del Vino (Wine Route), with train service, tastings on decks built high into vineyard hills, horseback excursions and rodeos performed by huasos (cowboys). Four-star Spanish-colonial-style hotels like the Santa Cruz Plaza are sprouting up, and festivals like the Vendimia (grape harvest) are drawing new crowds of foreigners. At the bottom of the world these days, the wine future looks all bottoms up. --With reporting by Cristobal Edwards/the Colchagua Valley and Uki Goni/Mendoza

With reporting by Cristobal Edwards/the Colchagua Valley and Uki Goni/Mendoza