When it comes to wines from Chile, there are many enjoyable economical bottles exported to a global market, but what makes one stand out over the others? Differentiation is key. With investment in people, resources, and the land, there are some Chilean wineries that can cater to a competitive international market, while also maintaining a thoughtful, local approach.
Let’s look at one winery and their successful method of producing characteristically Chilean wines through sustainable environmental practices, a focus on premium quality, and a connection to centuries of fine winemaking.
Winemaking in Chile
(Viña Los Vascos)
Each vintage of Le Dix features the best grapes from the top vineyard sites of Los Vascos.
Chile is a very unique winemaking country. Vineyard sites benefit greatly from distinctive geography, topography, and climate. With influence from both the Pacific Ocean and Andes Mountains, along with a warm Mediterranean climate, Chilean viticultural areas thrive due to a combination of dry air with cool breezes, warm summers, hillsides, and sunny valleys.
These features allow wineries to farm in more sustainable and organic ways without a looming threat of fungal diseases and pests. Due to its rare position in the world, Chile can also boast being phylloxera free. Some may argue that because this country has avoided the dreaded root louse, making it unnecessary to graft rootstocks, that the vines here are the purest in the world.
It is because of all of these features that well-known wine producers from around the world have chosen to invest in making Chilean wines. With investment, comes opportunity to showcase all of the best that the land can offer – in the most uniquely Chilean way.
(Viña Los Vascos)
Philippe Rolet is the Estate Manager of Viña Los Vascos.
The wines of Viña Los Vascos
Viña Los Vascos is in Chile’s famous Colchagua Valley, south of Santiago. It is here between the coastal mountain range to the west and the Andes to the east that Los Vascos encompasses 3600 hectares of land – one of the largest wineries in that area.
Though the winery is very much a reflection of the local identity of the region, with local traditions around sustainable land practices and vineyard management taking priority, Los Vascos has the added benefit of being part of the Domaines Barons de Rothschild Lafite (DBR Lafite) family of wine estates.
(Viña Los Vascos)
Domaines Barons de Rothschild acquired Viña Los Vascos in 1988 with the intention of making Chilean wines of elegance.
These estates can be found all over the world from the famed Château Lafite Rothschild and others in Bordeaux, to Languedoc in France, Argentina, and even China. The local focus of each of the DBR estates gives that particular winery, such as Los Vascos, its own unique identity tied to the native land and people.
A focus on sustainability
One of the defining characteristics of Los Vascos is a focus on sustainable and organic farming practices along with biodiversity on the property. Raquel Calatayud, R&D Sustainable Development and Quality Director at Los Vascos, oversees quality control, research and development, and all areas of sustainability.
Her job is to ensure that each part of the process of growing and farming vines to making wine can be reused and
(Viña Los Vascos)
Raquel Calatayud is a biologist specializing in evolution and ecology who established an earthworm-powered filtration as part of the winery's commitment to sustainable farming. They are about to convert all vinyards to organic production.
recycled, including things like plant waste, water consumption, and energy. A healthy and sustainable ecosystem with a diverse range of habitats for plants and animals is vital to ensuring long term quality in the land, community, and ultimately, wines.
Le Dix de Los Vascos premium wines
Los Vascos produces a range of value wines, but their premium line, Le Dix, made its debut with its first vintage in 1996, released in 1998. The name, “Le Dix,” is a nod to the release of the wines 10 years after the Rothschild family came to Chile and acquired Los Vascos. This line has become the DBR Lafite’s iconic Chilean wine.
Le Dix’s differentiating factor is that only the best grapes from the top vineyard are used in the winemaking process. Grapes grown on old vines from the “El Fraile,” or, “The Monk,” plot go into these wines – carrying the spirit of Le Dix throughout the ages.
(Viña Los Vascos)
Maximiliano Correa is Chief Winemaker at Viña Los Vascos.
A blend of cabernet sauvignon, syrah and carménère, each vintage of Le Dix showcases a different combination of these varieties, as a reflection of the highest quality grapes from that growing season. A vertical tasting of Le Dix wines is like a journey of taste through each individual vintage and every natural element that went into giving that year its own identity.
After hand-picking the finest grapes, Le Dix is aged in French oak barrels for 18 months. The aging process helps to give the wine an elegant richness and complexity, while adding spicy characteristics imparted by the oak to the ripe fruit of the wine.
Los Dix wines are released after they have undergone their aging within a few years, but there is something else Los Vascos offers that is even more distinctive for Chilean wine lovers. The “Cosechas Antiguas” wines are aged much longer in the cellars at Los Vascos. These bottles are only released when the winemaking team deems them to have reached the peak of their expression for that vintage.
This year, both the 2018 Le Dix and the 2010 Le Dix Cosechas Antiguas were released. Each showing off the best fruit from the top sustainable vineyards, and then aged perfectly for the pleasure of tasting something uniquely Chilean.
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(Viña Los Vascos)
Le Dix, meaning ten in French, was introduced in 1998 to celebrate Domaines Barons de Rothschild Lafite’s first ten years in Chile. Pictured here is a 2015 vintage.
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(The Wine Odyssey)
Viña Los Vascos produces a range of value wines.