Chile
Chile is a long (over 4,000 kilometers) yet narrow (177 km) strip of land in the western part of South America.
As the area is so widespread, climatic conditions in Chile are highly diversified. Grape growing covers the area of 800-900 kilometers in the central part of the country, between the Atacama Province in the North and Bio-Bio in the South, where a stable marine subtropical climate prevails. The dominance of close-by Andes results in large fluctuations of temperature between day and night.
From the historical perspective, Chile has become the second largest area of grape growing in South America, giving field only to Mexico. Due to the lack of endemic varieties (grapes were not grown in the pre-Columbian era), all grafts were brought from Europe. Initially, in the 16th Century, they came from Spain along with the inflow of Conquistadors and missionaries. Even the first grown variety was called "missiones". Long-term dependence on Spain brought about the isolation of Chilean vineyards. They produced low quality wines, from the most fertile varieties mainly for the local market and local brandy production. The situation changed slightly in the 19th Century. Along with the inflow of immigrants from other European countries, mainly Germany, France and Italy, more refined grafts reached Chile, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and the now forgotten Bordeaux variety – Carmenere, which is undergoing renaissance in Chile (almost 10% of all crops).
The phylloxera epidemic which occured at the end of the 19th Century has caused a short-term boom for Chilean wines. After the situation has been overcome in Europe, the country once again experienced wine-wise isolation from the rest of the world. Only political changes which occured in the 80's of the 20th Century have brought about a new opening to the world.
As it opened up to the world, Chile experience a high inflow of foreign investment which enabled modernisation and develoment of their wine production methods.
Initially, in the 90s, Chilean wines literally flooded supermarkets globally, and the very name “Chilean wine” became the synonym of cheap, supermarket wines. This was influenced by stable production in Chile which uses vineyard watering, forbidden anywhere else in Europe.
Currently, Chile is the 10th producer of the wine worldwide, and the quality of wines is becoming increasingly better, in many cases successfully overthrowing the supermarket wine label.