With nine wines in our global list of Top 100 Wines of 2019 (three times as many as it had in our 2018 list), Chile was represented more times than Germany, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal. Only Italy, France and the USA had more wines in the list, and it was level with Australia. If you needed proof of how much progress is being made by the top wineries in the country, surely that is it.

Most gratifying of all, many of these wines are often a fraction of the price of wines from the more established countries. Our tastings this year of more than 1,200 Chilean wines revealed bottles comparable to some great Burgundies, Bordeaux and Rhone, but often for less than US$80 a bottle.

So this list of our Top 100 Wines of Chile is going to be one of our best ever!

Read more: Chile’s tale of two cities – 1,200 wines rated

Big names lead the way

This year that quality was driven by and concentrated among the country’s most famous wineries. As we commented in our report earlier in the year: “The most daring Chilean viticulturists are pushing innovation to the limits and some of the highest-rated wines in their history are being released on the market … they are joining the ranks of some of the best in the world.”

Our favorite Chilean wine this year was Almaviva’s Puente Alto 2017, a muscular tower of power and finesse at the same time. Dense, tight and chewy but with wild, exotic aromas of earth and fruit, this will age beautifully. It’s another masterclass from Chile’s most accomplished winery and its second 100-point wine. The other 100-pointer, the Puente Alto 2015, was our Wine of the Year in 2017.

Our number two wine and the only other 100-point wine from Chile this year is the Viñedo Chadwick Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Maipo 2017. Juicy, succulent and fruity and with tangy acidity, this is another for the cellar. The small production red remains an icon for Chile.

Another 2017 bottle came in at number three – the Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2017 – and we think it is probably the best Don Melchor ever made. Don Melchor was recently taken out of the Concha y Toro line and made as a standalone winery. It deserves its unique position.

All three of the above wines benefitted from their Valle Central location in the hot, dry 2017 vintage, with the Maipo canyon and the rocky soils of the Maipo river providing a necessary cooling effect. But they also make use of the best know-how and technology. Almaviva uses optical sorting and discards around 12 percent of the harvest, for example, and is another of the reasons these iconic wines are stretching away from Chile’s lower quality mass-produced wines.

Watch: Legends of Chile movie

Quality increasing across the board

We did see signs that while Chile is still for the most part a bifurcated market, the variety of wines being made to a good standard and the various and complex terroirs and microclimates being expressed is increasing massively. Our top nine is full of other names you probably already know – Clos Apalta, Errazuriz, Sena, Montes – but coming in at number 10 with its best ever wine is the small winery of Polkura in Colchagua, with its 98-point Syrah Marchigue Valle de Colchagua Secano (Dry Farmed) 2017. An astonishing wine, it puts syrah on the map as Chile’s most consistently excellent grape variety and also highlights how smaller producers are also doing great, imaginative things with their winemaking.

The rest of the list is dotted with similar examples of wineries across the Chilean landscape upping their games to produce their own, and the country’s best wines. It is an exciting time to be a Chilean winemaker, and an exciting time to be a Chilean wine drinker too! We look forward to many more tastings next year and beyond.

Read more: Top 100 Andean Wines of 2018