Whatever old vines mean for the quality of the wine (a disputed topic), it’s hard not to be impressed if they’re 200 years old. The vines for Santa Cruz de Coya from the Chilean wine region Bío Bío, made by winemaker Roberto Henriquez, were planted at the time of Chile’s independence in 1818.
That certainly gives a certain feeling to opening a bottle. The Bío-Bío region is located a fair distance south in Chile and it was not long ago that it was thought that it was too far south for winegrowing. The climate is cooler and rainier than in other wine regions in the country. But the wind is constant, so the growers can usually avoid diseases.
The grape in this wine is país, a so-called criolla, the first grape variety planted by the Spaniards in South America in the 16th century. Wine from this grape is often an unpretentious wine, drunk locally. But in recent years, winemakers have started to work more ambitiously with it.
Roberto Henriquez shows what it is possible to do with the grape if you make the effort. Lovely, refreshing fruit (approx. 20 euro; and recently launched on the Swedish market). For wines from very old vineyards in Chile, look for the regions Bío Bío and Itata.
(Some other things that happened in 1818: Karl XIV Johan became king of Sweden, imported from France. Sweden lost Pomerania, now part of Poland and Germany. Illinois became the 21st state of the USA. Karl Marx was born. It was three years after the battle of Waterloo.)
Travel: Come on a wine tour to Chile and Argentina with BKWine.
