For a country of the so called New World, Chile offers a long and exciting history of viticulture. It goes back all the way to the 16th century.

The Spanish conquerors were soon followed by Jesuit missionaries who, with great enthusiasm, built numerous monasteries with adjoining vineyards; their priests needed altar wine for their church sevice.

Thanks to the soils rich of minerals, fed from the meltwater from the Andean mountains, and the ideal climate of dry summers with hot days and cool nights, the chilean wines developped to a competitor to the spanisch wine industry.

This did not please the Spaniards at all; they wanted to sell their own imported wine. The long journey, however, turned out to be a handicap compared to the local products, which definitely found far greater acceptance.

When the orders of the conquerors to drastically reduce the producion of grapes were widely ignored, and when Spain itself prohibited alltogether the import of wines from Chile and Peru, the surplus production of grapes was used to start a new line of business, the production of Pisco, a Cognac-like distillate.

In 1641 Spain prohibited the import of wines from Chile and Peru altogether.

As an alternative, chilean big landowners began to look toward France. They travelled to France and brought back some of France's successful grape varieties. The chilean wine culture gradually become an important and respected industry.

In 1867 Europe was hit by the phylloxera epidemic, which was not brought under control until 1915. More than half of the European wine production was destroyed; the conventional grape varieties did not have the resilience to fight off the destructive power of the phylloxera. This was the real breakthrough of the chilean wine industry. The European wine growers were in desperate need for resistant grape varieties which they were happy to find in Chile. Not only did they bring large numbers of vines home in order to rebuild the shattered wine industriy, but quite a few of them decided to start a new life right there in Chile and established their own vineries; the start of a true success story.

Names like Errazuriz, Concha y Toro, Lapostolle, Montes, Laura Hartwig, Santa Rita, Rothschild and many more dominate today's chilean wine industry. Following France, Spain, Italy and the USA, Argentina and Chile, each with some 13 Mio. hl annual production, are among the giants of the world's wine business.

Today, Chile's wine area streches from the Elqui Valley (30 th degree of latitude) all the way to the valley of Bio-Bio, some 1'000 km to the south. Some 75% of the total production are red wines, dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon (30%), followed by Merlot (15%), Carménère and Syrah. Some 25% of the total production are white wines, predominantly Sauvignon Blanc (10%), some 7% Chardonnay along with lesser amounts of Sémillon, Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris.

Thanks to the unique geographical position, sheltered between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, Chile to this day is the only wine country in the world where the false mildew and the much feared phylloxera do not excist. As a consequence, chemicals to fight these enemies must not be applied; bio-Production is virtually granted by itself. Wineries all over the wold are frequent buyers of the robust, self-rooted vines of many different varieties.