Wine makers return to traditional techniques

• published: 04 Aug 2015
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LEADIN Chile has been making wines since the 1500s when Spanish settlers first brought vines to the South American country. It's gone on to establish itself as one of the world's top exporters of reliable and affordable wine. Now, a group of vintners are using traditional techniques to reconnect their product with the land and their customers with a more natural tipple. STORYLINE Growing grapes rustic-style. There are no neatly-lined rows of vines in sight here. This is where Derek Mossman Knapp cultivates his grapes as part of a growing movement that's slowly challenging everything that drinkers think they know about Chilean wine. A new generation of oenologists are now rediscovering old regions with long-abandoned vines and using more natural styles of wine-making - focused on the uniqueness of the product rather than quantity. They've experimented in extreme places - from the icy south to northern areas in the heart of the Atacama desert. Using organic and bio-dynamic practices that shun pesticides, they're making less homogenised wines that are now winning prestige both among consumers and wine connoisseurs. Mossman's Garage Wine Company is one of 18 members of the Movement for Independent Vintners (MOVI). Most are Chilean but some also come from France, Canada and the U.S. "This project is kind of back to the roots, back to the land," says Mossman, who ran a brand agency in Santiago for a decade before starting his own wine label in his garage. "What we're doing in MOVI is trying to answer to an opportunity in the world today of people who are into food and into living better and into eating better. "They're interested in not ostentatiously expensive bottles of wine, but they're willing to spend a little more. We're saying instead of people spending 12.95 (US dollars), they're gonna spend perhaps north of 20 (US dollars) but south of 35 (US dollars)." The MOVI share a philosophy of using local grape-growing practices and often use rustic but proven methods - such as concrete eggs, stainless steel barrels and earthenware pots - for wine making. Garage Wine is mostly sold in boutique wine shops in San Francisco, New York and London for 20 to 30 US dollars per bottle. Elsewhere, vintners are hard at work cultivating Carmenere grapes at Alvaro Espinoza's biodynamic vineyard in Maipo Valley. Biodynamics agriculture bans the use of artificial pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. Based on the writings of Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, the farming operation is seen as a living, breathing organism affected by the cycles of the moon, planetary alignment and the seasons. Here, Espinoza uses solar panels to power his irrigation system. He follows the principles of biodynamics and advocates the relationship it creates between plants and animals. "The composts that we make ourselves to fertilise the fields, we invigorate the compost with herbal remedies, which go through animals to increase the vitality and the energy of the compost and subsequently of the ground when this compost is added to the vineyards, to the soil," he says. "Thus the soil revitalises itself, the soil has more energy to grow and therefore produces in a healthier manner way and with improved quality." Several prestigious mainstream vineyards such as Lapostolle, owned by the heirs to the Grand Marnier liquor company, also have embraced biodynamics. Its 'Clos Apalta,' a blend of Carmenere, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, was named Wine Spectator's wine of the year for 2008. "The idea is to make hand-made wine respecting the purity of the grape from our organic and biodynamic vineyard and translating that here to the cellar," says Andrea Leon, Lapostolle wine maker and communications manager. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/0b5c865043ba01ab64e3e053fae4be63 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork