Chile is renowned for its Cabernet Sauvignon from Maipo, but many other grapes and terroirs broaden the country’s stylistic range. Among them, the southern region of Maule presents a unique mosaic of vineyards. In this report, I review nearly 700 wines from across the country with a focus on Maule, highlighting new discoveries and revisiting key trends.

A little-known strip of Chile is producing a rich seam of distinctive, characterful reds and whites, with Cabernet Sauvignon conspicuously absent. This report focuses on Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cinsault, País and more from the Chilean coastline, where a range of delicious wines are ready to be discovered.

Two thousand twenty-four was characterized by the El Niño phenomenon, resulting in a cool spring and a summer with erratic veraison. By March, when the harvest window opened, the grapes had barely developed any sugars. Biding your time and choosing the perfect moment were the key factors in a year with less structure and more delicate fruit flavors.

Readers are likely familiar with Chile’s rich, fruity reds. Beyond that, wine lovers will find a number of bottles that speak to a country with a vast range of landscapes and styles. Inspired whites and reds offer new profiles, many of which are worth getting to know.

The 2023 harvest in Chile had two very different sides, depending on location. For most, it was a hot, dry year marred by forest fires in the south, from Maule to BioBio. Producers will remember 2023 as a vintage where the greatest conundrum was deciding the right time to pick.

In South America, some wines tell a story while others represent an entire era. There is no doubt that in Chile, Viñedo Chadwick is one of the latter. On my last trip to the country, I had the opportunity to explore 21 chapters of that tale, from beginning to end. Here is a journey through both the style of this Cabernet Sauvignon and the history of a terroir that has earned its name in Maipo.

What were you doing 25 years ago? A quarter of a century is a good chunk of anyone’s life, but time is always a matter of perspective. Whereas for some old-world producers 25 years can go by in the blink of an eye, in South America it represents an eternity. It’s hard to organize a vertical tasting that can adequately tell that story. But it is not impossible.

Chile is a country experiencing major upheavals in the wine scene. This report bears witness to a wide range of regions, beyond Maipo, where new flavor palates are emerging and further identifies the current trends in classic varieties and the challenges producers face today. The result, following a tasting of 800 wines, is an increasingly complex wine map, rich in different styles, varieties and flavors.

It’s difficult to summarize a vintage in a country where coastal and mountain valleys experience very different conditions, but the numbers show that 2022 in Chile was defined by two stand out phenomena: a lack of water and associated lack of relative humidity, as well as low temperatures. In the context of a drought that has been going on for 13 years now and a 2021 winter with some of the lowest rainfalls ever recorded from Maule to the north, the lack of water and low humidity accelerated ripening processes in the same way as one sees in hot years.

In a world working hard to reduce the effects of global warming caused by human activity, every little bit helps. It doesn’t matter whether action is taken in economic powerhouses such as China or the USA, or somewhere down at the southern edge of the world like Chile. In this long, skinny country at the bottom of South America, where green hydrogen and renewables are viable medium-term options for powering the country, the wine industry is taking responsibility and playing its part.

Chile’s 2021 harvest was unusual to say the least: more than 90% of the area under vine was struck by an abnormal weather phenomenon in the middle of summer, with almost unheard-of levels of rainfall in January. Only the northern and southern extremes were lucky enough to be left out. This was followed by a cool February that only served to exacerbate already frayed nerves and keep growers guessing. As it turned out, Bordeaux varieties fared rather well with far more favorable conditions in March producing very exciting Cabernet Sauvignons. This is an overview of a cool, rainy rollercoaster of a season, unlike any seen in recent memory.

Chilean wine producers are developing new styles, using grapes from vineyards planted in the far south of the country and the granite rich soils of the coastal mountain ridge known as the Cordillera de la Costa. Meanwhile, in Maipo, the Cabernet Sauvignons are growing ever more precise. This report provides an overview of these trends and what the changes mean for lovers of Chilean wine.

By the end of March 2020, almost every winery in Chile and Argentina had finished picking. Apart from a few small pockets, on both sides of the Andes the harvest was completed in record time. With ripening accelerated by a combination of climatic factors, and the looming threat of COVID-19 exerting pressure on work teams, we were presented with the unprecedented sight of bare vineyards at the end of March – generally not something you’d see until late April or early May.

This is a turbulent period in the history of Chile. The entire country is debating the prospect of a new constitution, which would represent an inflection point between one era and another. These changing times affect the wine industry as much as any other, since, like all cultural products, wine is a reflection of its political, social and economic context. The Chilean wine industry is also undergoing a transformation. But here, unlike the political situation, it’s nothing but good news. That was my first reflection after tasting over 700 wines on a two-week trip across the country...

After years of percolating beneath the surface of an ocean of corporate, albeit frequently well-made wines, Chile’s small-scale winemakers are slowly but steadily rising to the consciousness of wine lovers. At the same time, a number of the country's largest wineries are stepping up their own quality game, making these exciting vinous times for Chile, which for too long was spoken of more for its quality potential than for the actual merit of its wines.

I tasted more top-notch Chilean wines this year than ever before, and at all price points. From racy Sauvignon Blancs that have been catching the lion’s share of the wine trade’s attention to high-end Bordeaux- and Napa-inspired Cabernets and Cabernet-based blends to exciting new Pinot Noirs and Syrahs, there’s something of interest for every palate.

Slowly but surely, Chile has been gaining respect for producing more than just a handful of world-class wines

The two vintages that make up the bulk of the wines I tasted for our annual report on Chile's wines, 2011 and 2010, posed a number of challenges for the country's growers and winemakers--chiefly, how to make attractive wine from mostly underripe fruit

The growth and diversification of the Chilean wine industry continue apace

As in recent years it was Chile’s sauvignon blancs that impressed me most in my annual tastings, especially at the lower price points, which is great news for consumers who might be looking for alternatives to increasingly pricey New Zealand versions

One would be hard-pressed to name a country that is producing a wider range of serious wines in the under-$20 category than Chile, especially over the last five years

While Chile continues to be a very good source of wine values, prices are no longer as consistently attractive at the low end as they were the last time the IWC published coverage of this category, two years ago

Chile shows signs of being capable of producing high-end wines to compete with the best of the New World

Slogging through a couple hundred new releases from Chile this winter was hard work with relatively paltry pay-off

If you're familiar with the wines of Chile, you've no doubt read that this is a near-Edenic region featuring wall-to-wall sunshine and boringly clement harvests