20 Years Later: Looking Back on the Great Evolution of Chilean Wines
In the world of wine, every region faces its own struggles with how it’s perceived by the majority of the population. You’ll often hear the following statements from folks with a modest knowledge of the wine scene: The best French wines must be from Bordeaux, buttery Chardonnays are the only good white wines from California, and Canadian wines are too young and can’t keep up with the Europeans. All of these perspectives are patently wrong, as is the occasionally circulated opinion that South America only makes affordable entry-level wines. We know that’s wrong, as does Eduardo Chadwick, who has spent the last several decades crafting world-class wines at Viñedos Familia Chadwick.
A sixth-generation winemaker, Chadwick’s reputation is a strong one. His efforts have played a major role in validating Chilean wines globally, and this past year marked the anniversary of one of his career’s major milestones: the Berlin tasting. Though not as well known as the famed Paris Tasting of 1976, which put Napa Valley on the map, the Berlin tasting was in essence the same experience for Chile — a moment where Chilean wines were proven capable of holding their own against European legends like Château Margaux, Château Lafite-Rothschild, Solaia, and others. Before we get to that milestone, though, we need to look a touch further back.
Starting from the very beginning, the first of the aforementioned generations was Don Maximiano Errázuriz, who started making wines at Viña Errázuriz in the Aconcagua Valley of Chile as far back as 1870. Though the earliest varietals to arrive in Chile were of Spanish Descent, the 19th century saw a significant shift towards French influence on the region’s wines, principally fuelled by wealthy industrialists traveling abroad and experiencing France’s mastery of the craft at the time. Bordeaux varietals were imported, and winemakers began seeking higher education on the craft from French vineyards.
Jumping ahead to the fifth generation, Chadwick’s father Alfonso Chadwick Errázuriz — a successful entrepreneur and wine broker — acquired an estate on which to start making wine in 1942, when he wasn’t busy being one of Chile’s best polo players. Business wasn’t bad at all, at least to start, but any good history buff knows that things in Chile through the ’60s and ’70s were challenging at best. Between the nationalist measures of the nation’s Leftist leadership, the significant levels of meddling by the CIA to oust Leftist leader Salvador Allende in favour of the “business friendly” dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the ruthless onslaught of war crimes and human rights violations that followed…. You get the idea.
The ’80s were the beginning of the turning point for Chadwick and the multi-generational winemaking powerhouse. In 1983, as many other of the region’s winemakers were shuttering businesses and tearing up their vineyards, the 24-year-old was invited into the family business. It was time to modernize, expand, and more than anything, break into international markets. It was the core goal from day one, and not one that was in any way easy. “At that point, Chile had this image of being able to produce good entry-level wines, but we didn’t have the prestige of places like Napa, Bordeaux, or Tuscany,” says Chadwick. “and our challenge was to prove that we could produce wines to rival the best in the industry. That’s been my life’s motive, and 20 years ago, that went very well.”
The road to the Berlin tasting was not simple, nor was it straightforward. Chadwick first focused on the Errazuriz Don Maximiano, a Cabernet Sauvignon grown on the site of the family’s first vineyard. Touring the world, introducing the wine to new markets, and all the while fighting the uphill battle of getting global wine critics to give Chile a fair shot. Though the critics were still slow on the uptick, he did get the attention of another noteworthy figure in winemaking; Robert Mondavi decided to make the trip down to Chile to meet with Chadwick and his father in 1995.
Seña Winery
Seña Winery
Seña Winery
Seña Winery
The family was in the early stages of building Seña Wines, a Bordeaux-inspired blend, on a property closer to the coast about an hour or so out of Valparaìso. Mondavi, much in the same way he worked with the Rothschilds on the development of Opus One in the late ’70s, wanted to participate in the global discovery of top-shelf Chilean wines. The Chadwicks welcomed the idea, after all, having a name like Mondavi involved in Chilean winemaking further validated the potential of the region, despite being snubbed by the wine critics of the era.
It took just shy of another decade for that breakthrough to come, and it was one of Chadwick’s own initiatives. Even by the early ’00s, wine critics like Robert Parker and the folks from Wine Spectator still weren’t traveling to Chile, nor were they scoring any Chilean wines. The solution was a blind tasting, having five wines from the family’s portfolio go head-to-head against a slew of top-scoring wines from Bordeaux and Tuscany. Of the sixteen wines tasted, all five of their wines scored in the top ten, with Viñedo Chadwick 2000 and Seña 2001 holding the top two spots. Though the family was ecstatic, they didn’t stop there — the same tasting was conducted 21 more times in cities around the globe over the subsequent decade, yielding consistent results.
The obvious shift in recognition proved to be a major milestone, yet somehow there are still some folks out there managing to sleep on these world-class wines. Chadwick is still working his magic, the company’s wines have maintained their impressive stature, and with only 10,000 bottles of Viñedo Chadwick going to market each year, the portfolio gets snapped up quickly despite not being nearly as broadly known as the Latours, Lafites, and Rothschilds of the world.
Call it an “if you know, you know” wine, perhaps, but if you pull one of these bottles out for someone who considers themselves a connoisseur and they haven’t heard of Chadwick, Seña, or Don Maximiano, be ready to watch someone’s perspective change in real time.
