The Road Ahead

Santiago is alive with confidence and construction, an echo of New York City during the boom years of the 1980s. Stylish restaurants are part of the Spanish-flavored culture; their eclectic menus range from classic French to Peruvian Indian cuisines. But an American diner finds the local style curiously old-fashioned. Machas a la parmesana, a classic appetizer, is a sizzling plate of local Pacific shellfish that resemble sweet, tender clams, crusted with butter and cheese, then broiled. It’s a high-fat thrill, but the delicate machas are sadly overwhelmed.

Restaurant wine lists also diverge from American tastes. The lists themselves are short, exclusively Chilean and usually lack vintage dates. The wines parallel the food. During a visit in November to a top Santiago seafood house, the most expensive white on the list was a seven-year-old Sauvignon Blanc. It was full-bodied, rich and dull, nearly petrified in oak; pleasurable, in its way, but the crisp, light fruit had long since vanished.


But there are small restaurants on the rocky Pacific coast north of Valparaiso that show a different aspect of Chilean food. Their machas are harvested the same morning a few hundred yards off-shore. A wiry old waiter opens them with a sharp knife, and they’re served on ice with a salsa of lemon, parsley and cilantro. The wine lists aren’t long, but everything is inexpensive, and that means Chile’s youngest, freshest, most vibrant wines. Matching the sweet, briny shellfish with a vibrant Sauvignon Blanc grown in the Casablanca Valley just a few miles away gives a thrilling taste of the possibilities.

In both gastronomy and wine, Chile is moving towards greater respect for the raw ingredients. The first step is to present them simply, in all their freshness and purity. That’s where the wines are now, the good values we enjoy in America. They’re not likely to disappear, either. Yields will remain high, because the environmental conditions allow it and the economy needs it. But the grapes will be healthier and the wineries more proficient, so prices and quality should both be secure.

The second step is to develop a true haute cuisine. In food and wine, that means creating complexity from great ingredients. Chile has a flourishing economy and a drive to match the northern hemisphere in culture and success, and the ambitious wineries are rushing towards this goal.

New wineries are under construction all over the Central Valley, for Carmen, Viña Aquitania, Casa Lapostolle, San Pedro and more; others are being refurbished. A wine law passed just this year defines vineyard regions and subregions and regulates label descriptions as strictly as California does. Other international markets, notably the United Kingdom, are also thirsty for Chilean wines. Even at home, wine tastes are shifting toward fresher, fruitier wines. Winery tourism is rudimentary today, but the bandwagon is rolling.

There are risks. If the wineries don’t succeed in completing the transformation, they might alienate both international markets (with rising prices) and their own domestic consumers (with unpalatable wines). A national economic crash could pull down fragile wineries heavily burdened with debt from expansion. Phylloxera could devastate their vineyards, which are still planted directly on their original European roots, defenseless.

Pedro Izquierdo is already experimenting with American rootstocks, just in case, and he’s not the only one. The Chilean wine industry is poised to meet its challenges. For now, its success lies chiefly in supplying attractive wines at attractive prices. But follow the top wineries closely over the next few years. The path ahead is bright, and outstanding wines are on the horizon.