 Cheers
for Chile '99
By Andrew Campbell
The 1999 harvest for Chile's Wine Industry is
considered to be their best ever. As they are just beginning to
hit the Seattle market, buy them up now, or soon the vintage will
become, like the 1997 California Cabernets, a blissful memory.
The 1999 vintage featured generally lower yields in every
varietal because of poor bud fertility and drought. These lower
yields resulted in the extraordinary high quality of the vintage,
since the vines had to focus their energy on survival, instead of
on production of fruit, resulting in smaller grape clusters and a
higher concentration of juice.
The weather was major component that made 1999 for Chile so
remarkable. Spring and most of the growing season (Southern
Hemisphere's growing season is the exact opposite of the Northern
Hemisphere's growing season) were warm and dry. Temperatures
dropped considerably as the grapes started to ripen, and the cool
weather continued throughout the harvest. Wineries had attained
the correct amount of sugars early in the ripening season, but had
to pick most of their fruit very late because the cool weather.
This resulted in a rounding of the wines, with rich, full-bodied
wines with ripe fruit characters.
My best tip so far this year is to buy 1999 Chilean wines now.
Some particular ones to look for include: Casa Lapostolle Merlot,
Errazuriz Cabernet, Caliterra Cabernet, and even Tarapaca cab and
merlot.
The 1999 vintage will be the one known for putting Chile on
the fine wine map, and will be sorely missed as this vintage comes
to pass. As Guy Hooper of Santa Ines Vineyards says, "the
1999 harvest will be remembered principally for three reasons: a
historically early start in February, dramatically low volumes and
a spectacular quality of red wines."
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