Chilean wines are moving out of the sub-€10 category, writes Joe Breen
What have the forthcoming Ploughing Championship in Cork, the Ideal Homes Exhibition in the RDS in October and the Holiday World Exhibition in January all got in common? They will features showcases of Chilean wines by Jean Smollen, director of the recently opened Wines of Chile office in Ireland.
That agenda proves that wine consumption is no longer the preserve of the genteel folk. Second, it shows that Chilean wine-makers are not content with reaching second place behind Australia in the Irish market.
"Our next step and our programme for next year is to highlight the regions and to focus on the key grape varieties and wine styles," Smollen says. "We will be adopting a 'promotion through education' approach and plan to attend as many consumer events as possible to showcase Chilean wines." The best-performing countries in 2004 were Australia and Chile, she said, which between them accounted for 44.7 per cent of the total table wine market in Ireland.
"There has been a huge transition from old-world to new-world wines in Ireland. In the years 1990 to 2004 there was a dramatic increase in sales, with new world wines rising from 6 per cent of the total market to 75 per cent of the total market share."
She was speaking after a recent monster tasting of mid-price Chilean wine in Dublin. Although not all the wines left me breathless, there was enough class on show (see Bottles of the Week) to reinforce Chile's move into the mid-price and high-price range.
"The opportunity for Chilean wine is that the Irish wine-market is growing and is expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We must now focus on the mid-price range and create increased awareness of the quality and diversity of wine available in this sector. Hence, all the wines we tasted last week were over €10."
While there is still lots of value in the sub-€10 range, Chile is reaching up and out beyond the cheap and cheerful varietal label. The Chilean winery, Errazuriz, recently hosted a seminar on blending in Trinity College, Dublin. The British Association's Festival of Science was on at the same time, and anybody viewing the men and women feverishly searching for the right blend by mixing a range of red varietals in thin vials could have been excused for confusing the events.
The varietals were Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Carmenere, Merlot and Pinot Verdot. Your correspondent performed reasonably, topping his table with a cutting blend of 70 per cent Carmenere, 25 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and 5 per cent Petit Verdot, but the prizes went elsewhere.
The event has a serious side, in that it served to underline the complexity of blending and to introduce an inviting new wine, The Blend 2003, which should be in shops in the next few weeks.
Earlier that day, courtesy of Cassidy Wines, we had been entertained by Jane Ferrari, who, true to her name, raced through the many virtues of the leading independent Barossa Valley winery, Yalumba. Entitled the "The Viognier Monologues Tasting", the larger-than-life Ferrari navigated us through nine wines, the most memorable of which was a delightfully fresh and fruitful "sticky", the 2004 Hand-Picked Wrattonbully Botrytis Viognier. The same vintage's Eden Valley Viognier, a successor to the lip-smacking 2003 - a recent wine of the week - suffered in comparison.
The reds were an impressive and stylish bunch. The 1998 and 2001 "The Octavius" Barossa Old Vine Shiraz, Yalumba's top of the range, have still some way to go but Ferrari predicted great things for the younger, while the elder's velvety fruit and intense flavours speak for themselves. In between were a very acceptable 2003 Barossa Shiraz and Viognier - the wine most drunk by staff, said Ferrari - and the enticing soft-peppery 2003 Hand-Picked Shiraz and Viognier.