Leading the Way in Chile

Concha y Toro is big business. The biggest winery in Chile sold nearly six million cases of wine last year, for total revenues of nearly $75 million. A $25 million investment program is building new wineries and refurbishing old ones, and the company now tends nearly 5,000 acres of vines. The effort is paying off: Concha y Toro is leading the way in Chile.

The winery operates as a number of relatively independent units, which brings the size down to a manageable scale and gives talented winemakers the chance to express themselves. The result is good wines under a variety of labels and at many price points. It’s no wonder the company (which also includes the Walnut Crest brand) is responsible for more than 50 percent of all Chile’s wine exports to the United States.


The company’s home base is in the town of Pirque, in the Maipo Valley. Ramon Subercaseaux, who planted the first vines here in the mid-19th century, also had the foresight and the capital to build the original La Sirena canal from the Maipo River, which turned the Central Valley desert into an agricultural paradise. The 19th-century winery, an imposing hacienda with its beautiful gardens and well-organized program of tours and tastings, makes the Pirque complex a lively tourist destination, one of the few in Chile’s wine country.

“Having vineyards in all the major growing areas, from Casablanca right down to Talca, gives us a lot of options,” says Pablo Morandé, chief winemaker in Pirque. “In Maipo, we get wines of elegance; farther south in Rapel, the wines are fuller-bodied. In the end, controlling the grape supply is crucial to fine wine.”

The flagship estate is the vineyard at Puente Alto, purchased 25 years ago, where winemaker Gaetone Carron makes the top-of-the-line Don Melchor Cabernet from the estate’s grapes, and also Concha y Toro’s reserve wines under the Marqués de Casa Concha label. Though the winery is hardly state-of-the-art, the young Frenchwoman makes wines of richness and intensity.

“We’re where California was 20 years ago,” Carron affirms. “But I don’t think it will take 20 more years to catch up.”

The public company’s latest venture is a deal with winemaker Ignacio Recabarren for a line of varietals called “Trio.” If Concha y Toro isn’t the first winery to make great wines in Chile, it won’t be from lack of commitment. Right now, they’re turning out some of Chile’s best wines and many of its best values. –T.M.