Top 100 Wines of Chile 2020

Enrique Tirado, winemaker at Don Melchor which made our No. 1 Chilean wine for 2020, is a student of Bordeaux terroir and applies it to his soils in Chile.

It is hard to decide if it is Argentina or Chile that offers more great-value bottles today. Both have a name for wines of a very high quality-price ratio. The difference is that while many Argentine wines are consumed in the domestic market, Chile still exports four out of five bottles, and delivers diverse styles using many different grape varieties. Those that rate 90-93 points remain the mainstay in Chile. However, this year we felt there could have been more surprises from these wines.

2020 saw three 100-point Chilean wines – a consistent showing from three top producers: Don Melchor, Clos Apalta, and Seña, who are three ultra-premium brands supported by big groups and companies. And for the first time, Don Melchor has taken the No. 1 spot with its 2018 vintage in our Chile Top 100 list, after it took off on its own last year splitting from its parent wine group, the largest in Latin America, Concha y Toro. Now, the wines are made in its own winery while Chief Winemaker Enrique Tirado is still at the helm. The Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2018 is all about youth, depth and energy that unveils the beautiful poise of a top Chilean cabernet sauvignon with its dense but superbly polished tannin and tension, knitting up a full but linear and seamless mouthfeel. It is a wine for the next two decades. Clos Apalta Valle de Apalta 2017 (No. 2), once again scored a perfect 100 points, making it the first Chilean wine to wine three 100-point ratings on JamesSuckling.com. The 2017 vintage also commemorates the 20th anniversary of Clos Apalta, representing the culmination of the efforts that the owner Charles Bournet and his family have devoted to their great wines whose grapes now come from biodynamically farmed vineyards.

Our No. 3 and No. 4 wines also come from biodynamic farming. Eduardo Chadwick’s Seña Valle de Aconcagua 2018 (No. 3, 100 points) and Emiliana Valle de Colchagua Gê 2017 (No. 4, 98 points), both red blends, are the highlights of Chile’s biodynamic progress. In fact, Gê was reportedly the first certified biodynamic wine in Chile. Today, the country has some of the largest biodynamically farmed vineyards in the world, with Emiliana being the largest holder of organic vineyards in the country, and most likely, biodynamically, too.

“My uncle Jose was one of the first to start farming biodynamically in Chile, and we believe in the methodology and principles,” said Alejandro Mitarakis, marketing director at Emiliana, whose family is a key shareholder of the winery. Their Emiliana Valle de Colchagua Coyam 2018 (No. 21, 95 points), a very sophisticated blend of 43% syrah, 29% carmenere, 12% cabernet sauvignon, 5% mourvedre with other five varieties, is one of the great-value wines we know from Colchagua.

Other front runners in our Chilean Top 100 list this year that adopt biodynamic farming include Pierre Lurton’s Hacienda Araucano Carmenere Valle de Colchagua Alka 2016 (No. 13, 97 points), which makes one of the top carmeneres from the country. Matetic Syrah Valle de San Antonio 2015 (No. 17, 96 points), a top syrah from this prominent estate of Croatian origin, shows a tangy and appetizing peppery character on its deep and fresh dark fruit. I could often discern some vivid peppercorn characters from the nose too, and it was hard not to drink glass after glass.

This year, syrah marks a record-high inclusion for the varietal in the Top 100 list: 17 bottles (excluding a few syrah-led blends), while pinot noir took 13 places. Both exceeded the number of wines selected from varietal cabernet sauvignon and carmenere. While they still remain the most relevant varieties for Chilean red blends and make up many premium and elite wines that are very well-received by the market, it is syrah, and increasingly Rhone blends and pinot noir that Chile has nailed in the last few years, especially in the cooler appellations such as Casablanca, Leyda and San Antonio Valley. Sadly, many producers have to deal with severe water shortages, which has given winemakers and viticulturists headaches in warm vintages.“Water is like gold here in Casablanca,” I was told by a few winemakers during a three-day trip to the valley in February 2020.

Outside the relatively cool-climate Casablanca, another syrah also made it into the top 10 this year: the Polkura Syrah Valle de Colchagua Marchigue Block g+1 2017 (No. 7, 97 points). It leads the game with a few other consistent names — Undurraga Syrah Valle de Leyda Terroir Hunter 2017 (No. 14), Lapostolle Syrah Valle de Apalta Cuvée Alexandre 2018 (No. 15), Polkura Syrah Valle de Colchagua Marchigue Secano (Dry Farmed) 2018 (No. 16) and the one from Matetic mentioned above, and of course, the dense, rich and plush Montes Valle de Apalta Folly 2017 (No. 18), a wine that continually delivers quality, concentration and pleasures without sacrificing freshness. It is a rich, hedonistic wine, almost like a convivial syrah carnival taking place on your tongue. These bottles all received 96 points, and it is not hard to fathom the potential of Chilean syrahs that increasingly provide different styles and superlative quality. This is a message from Chile, and our Top 100 list this year shows syrah looming large.

As one of the MOVI (Movimiento de Viñateros Independientes) producers, Sven Bruchfeld of Polkura once told James that it was hard to keep the business rolling if smaller producers only set their minds on making “great wines.” Pressure from the market still means most of them have to make good to excellent wines whose selling point falls on“value”, and these wines are the majority of what Chile has to offer to the world today. Only small producers like Polkura and P.S. Garcia this year strived for greatness against the demands from the market. This is why we say the 90-93pt wines are becoming standard in Chile, but we feel there can and should be more to these wines, with plenty of potential for wines that score 95 points and up.

Another observation this year was the strong showing of pinot noir and chardonnay in the list, which is complemented by a compelling diversity of other grapes and wine styles. Errazuriz’s finest blend of terroirs in Aconcagua coast near the ocean – Errázuriz Pinot Noir Aconcagua Costa Las Pizarras 2019 (No. 8, 98 points), is the finest expressions of this finicky Burgundy variety in Chile. Ditto Errázuriz Chardonnay Aconcagua Costa Las Pizarras 2019 (No. 5, 98 points), which is a complex, full-bodied yet linear white that shows all the sensibility of a fine chardonnay. Eduardo Chadwick continues to make 100-point wines at Seña and Viñedo Chadwick but his top pinots and chardonnays from Errázuriz are close behind.

Chadwick’s winemaker, Francisco Baettig, the unsung hero behind these wines, also pursues his love of finesse, texture, and structure in the cool Traiguen, in the southern tip of the country’s wine-growing area where the grapes go through a slow and long growing season. His debut wines from his brand Baettig are compelling. The Baettig Chardonnay Traiguén Vino de Viñedo Los Parientes 2019 (No. 30, 95 points) and Baettig Pinot Noir Traiguén Selección de Parcelas Los Primos 2018 (No. 37, 95 points) are the rare gems that make you contemplate Burgundy.

Many producers, big and small, contribute to Chilean pinot noirs’ fast improvement around the country. Matetic, Ritual (by Veramonte), Leyda, Concha y Toro, Cono Sur, Villard, Casa Marin, Clos des Fous, Kingston Family and Pandolfi Price are the other top names we recommend from Chile. They turned around Chile’s pinot situation from wines with simple, sweet-sour fruit in the past to the fine elixirs today with real poise, elegance, structure and above all, etherealness. Now the question is not if Chile can make excellent pinot noirs, what we need to ask is how far Chilean pinot noirs can go. We would love to see more wines being scored 95 points and higher. This year, we have three of them.

Chile is often described as the “longest”country in the world thanks to its widest range of latitude. Wine growing starts from 30 S in the north to somewhere around 39 S in the south in this unusually narrow strip of land. The distinctive climates and terroirs along this strip unsurprisingly give birth to a broad spectrum of wine styles. This year’s Top 100 list also shows and commends this diversity. Chile’s dry-farmed old vines of carignan led by VIGNO yielded wines of exceptional freshness, mouthwatering acidity and concentration with lots of floral, also slightly austere and intellectual qualities, make them always unique and exciting to taste. Although the wildfire in central Chile (especially Maule) in 2017 caused some smoke taint for some wines, many still managed to pull themselves out and delivered healthy wines from a climatically challenging year. We have included four carignans in the list from Undurraga, La Junta, Carmen, and Morandé. There are also two cabernet francs, two malbecs, two grenaches and a few other wines of Mediterranean varieties that show the panoramic view of Chile’s diverse terroirs. P. S. Garcia Grenache Valle de Itata Piedra Lisa Vineyard 2017 (No. 11, 97 points) delivered a unique experience. It is a fascinating grenache grafted onto the bush vines of país over 100 years old in the cool Itata region, and it refreshed our perception of the grape with its stunning resilience and adaptability, delivering a compelling red threaded by a beam of bright, electric acidity in a crisp texture filled with fresh, succulent yet brooding fruit. The 2017 vintage only produced 579 bottles, but the price is incredibly down-to-earth. Buy a dozen if you can find them.

As for whites, while chardonnay took five places in the list and continues to shine, semillon had a great showing this year and grabbed four places. Today, many Chilean producers are putting more thought into semillon, doing skin contact to lend some exotic perfumes, flavors and structure to match its bright acidity. This adds extra interest and allure and makes them hard to resist when young. Clearly, natural and orange wines are on the rise in Chile. This is also one of our takeaways from the tasting trip to Chile in February this year. You can also find an orange wine of viognier from Siegel and a pinot grigio from Villard in this list. Red grapes of cinsault and pais also dotted Chile’s red wine scene with a natural sensibility and thought-provoking drinkability. Many come from the hands of young but extremely talented and insightful winemakers. These wines are the fun gems that put a smile on our faces after a long tasting day.

Quality (score), value (retail price), consistency, availability and the “wow-factor” are the main criteria we considered when creating this list. We believe that Chile today is a trustworthy source of excellent wines of great value, retailing from $15-$35, and plenty of them fall in a score range of 90-93 points. But we don’t want to see this section become a comfort zone, where these wines rest on their laurels. After all, wines of $15-$35 are the mainstay in Chile, delivering a myriad of styles, value, and surprises to the world. They are the wines that we love, buy, and drink. Consumers can now count on these wines for quality, price, and consistency, but as a wine journalist, I can’t help but greedily expect more from this category.

– Zekun Shuai, associate editor in Beijing