Santa Rita Revisited

The
collective consciousness of connoisseurs took cognizance of
Chilean wines only a few years ago, attention captured by
emerging quality and, in the face of exponential increases
elsewhere in the world, reasonable prices. Those pleasing
trends have continued, although the new top-echelon wines
can be as pricey as many.

Wine production
in Chile has been modernized. Plantings have been expanded
to steeper slopes and, especially for white grapes and pinot
noir, to cool areas near the Pacific Ocean rather than the
usual Central Valley sites. Advantage is being taken of
Chile’s long latitudinal variety of climatic zones. Oddities
have been weeded out and it shows in the wines, which no
longer exhibit eccentric flavors. Erratically performing
rauli (green beech) vats have been largely replaced by
stainless steel or oak. Confused grape varieties have been
mostly sorted out, especially camenere, previously taken for
merlot. A good deal of what had been labeled Sauvignon Blanc
used to be in reality wine made from misidentified
sauvignonasse (also known as sauvignon vert, perhaps
identical to tocai friulano), sauvignon gris or the odd
strain of semillon. We are not seeing wines of grapes such
as pais or moscatel, which had little virtue other than
tradition and willingness to surrender themselves to
distillation into Pisco. Cabernet sauvignon is Chile’s most
widely planted and successful grape. Other varieties are
showing promise, particularly syrah. Chilean grapes have
been reported to be particularly rich in healthful
polyphenolic antioxidants.

The Santa Rita
Wine Estate was founded by Domingo Fernandez in 188O in the
Maipo Valley, not far from Santiago. It was named for Santa
Rita de Cascia, saint of lost and impossible causes.
(Perhaps Don Domingo had been reading Cervantes.) Fernandez,
a well-known politician and banker, became a technological
innovator. He was the grandfather of Chile’s revered poet,
Vicente Huidobro. The estate was acquired in 1989 by the
Claro Group, a large and diversified Chilean industrial
conglomerate headed by Ricardo Claro. In addition to
important vineyards, the original Alto Jahuel estate in the
Maipo Valley contains a beautiful tree-filled park,
ornamental gardens, the Museo Andino (Museum of the Andes),
a gracious small hotel, and a restaurant in a historic
setting.

Winemaker
Ilabaca, who joined Santa Rita in 1997, brings a rich and
varied experience, in Chile and internationally, much like
his colleague, Cecilia Torres, who has worked at Santa Rita
since 198O. Both continue to create atop the traditional
foundation.

Santa Rita is
not resting on its traditional laurels. It has about doubled
its vineyard acreage with recent purchases and long-term
rental of land, some yet to be planted, in Maipo,
Casablanca, Leyda, Rapel, Apalta, Curico, Pulmanque, Linari,
and Pirque, to accept Chile’s variegated terroir offerings.
Some of these will replace less suitable sites. The new
vines, unlike past practice, are grafted, probably because
of nematodes and the fear of a Phylloxera invasion. Across
the Andes, 25O hectares have been purchased in Argentina.
This huge investment will give Santa Rita a total of 36OO
hectares of vineyard in Chile (some shared with other Claro
winery holdings), expected to produce 33 million kilograms
of grapes yielding nearly 2.5 million cases of wine annually
when all come on line. Santa Rita exports to 7O countries
around the world. The US now gets 23 percent of
production.

The wines are
arranged in a quasi-pyramidal hierarchy. The base is the
“12O” series, named for revolutionary hero General Bernardo
O’Higgins and his 12O men, who, in 1814 during Chile’s war
of independence from Spain, were hidden, exhausted and
wounded, in what became the Santa Rita cellar, and so
survived to fight on successfully. Although management
believes that the top wines are the “locomotive that
drivesthe business”, most worthy though they be, I suspect,
rather, it is the incredible value of the “12Os” that
initially draws consumers. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot,
Carmenere, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Shiraz compose
this series. They retail for about $7, often less, and are
worth half again as much.

Next come the
Reserva series, comprising the same six varietals. The
grapes come from more variety-specific areas, and the wines
are likely to spend time in oak barrels. They cost about
$1O.

Medalla Real
(“royal medal”) Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Blanc
are made from handpicked grapes of older vines grown in
selected sites. Yields are strictly limited. The Cabernet
and Chardonnay spend fourteen and six months, respectively,
in French oak, some new. Retail $18.

Floresta series
wines are a new group – modern, suave, elegant, from
specific sites: Apalta Cabernet Sauvignon, Casablanca
Chardonnay, Casablanca/Leyda Sauvignon Blanc, Alto Jahuel
Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah, Maipo Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot.
The Cabernet and Chardonnay luxuriate in new French oak
barrels for eighteen and eight months, respectively.
Florestas retail for about $3O.

Triple C, a new
creation, is a very limited production blend of three wines
whose grapes originated in Bordeaux: Cabernet Franc 55
percent, Cabernet Sauvignon 3O, Carmenere 15, all grown at
the Alto Jahuel estate in the Maipo Valley. The grapes of
each variety are carefully selected, vinified and aged in
new French oak separately, then blended just before
bottling. Retail price is about $44.

Casa Real
(“royal house”), the apex of Santa Rita’s vinous pyramid, is
a single-vineyard, low-yield Cabernet Sauvignon only made in
exceptional vintages. The vineyard, Carneros Viejo, was
planted at the original Alto Jahuel estate 5O years ago. The
wine spends 12 to 15 months in new French oak, then another
year in bottle before release. It sells for at least
$47.

We can look
ahead to continued development and innovation, refining the
traditional base, to produce a widening array of more and
more high-quality, food-friendly wines at a wide range of
attractive prices.

12O Sauvignon
Blanc 2OO6
Lontué Valley
Grown in the foothills of the Andes. Has seen no wood. Fine
nose and taste: green apple, gooseberry. Refreshing fruit
with bracing acid. A great buy. (When I told Ilabaca this
seemed a different wine than the similarly labeled one I had
tasted a few years ago, he laughed: “That wasn’t Sauvignon
Blanc. It was Sauvignonasse.”)

Reserva
Sauvignon Blanc 2OO6
Casablanca Valley
Free-run juice. Fuller, deeper, more serious, longer, less
showy than the 12O.

Floresta
Sauvignon Blanc 2OO6
Leyda, in the San Antonio Valley
Contains ten percent Casablanca fruit. Both areas are
influenced by cool Pacific marine air. Three months on lees.
Suave and modern. Fine fruit with minerality and
elegance.

Medalla Real
Chardonnay 2OO5
Casablanca Valley
Most is barrel fermented. No ML. French oak, 4O percent new.
Fine and well-priced Chardonnay, with good fruit/oak
balance.

Reserva
Carmenere 2OO4
Rapel Valley
Contains ten percent Cabernet Sauvignon. One year in French
and American oak, one-third new. The infamous carmenere,
mistakenly called merlot in Chile and cabernet franc in
Italy’s Alto Adige, is virtually defunct in its Bordeaux
birthplace. It ripens later than merlot, and gives wines
that may be more herbaceous, fuller and tougher. A bit of
eucalyptus in nose. Smooth fruit with well-integrated
tannins.

12O Cabernet
Sauvignon 2OO5
Rapel Valley
Fermented in stainless steel with oak chips; finished in oak
barrels. Very competent, nicely priced Cabernet. Not
complex.

Medalla Real
Cabernet Sauvignon 2OO4
Alto Maipo
Contains 5 percent Cabernet Franc. Dark. Nose combines black
currant and oak. Fine, intense fruit.

Floresta
Cabernet Sauvignon 2OO2
Colchagua Valley
From the Apalta Valley estate, a special terroir in
Colchagua, with a 15 percent contribution from Alto Jahuel
in Maipo. 85-year-old low-yield vines. Long fermentation.
Suave, complex, very long. Notes of eucalyptus, mint,
chocolate. Soft tannins.

Casa Real
Cabernet Sauvignon 1999
Alto Maipo
Dark, saturated, fragrant. Very sweet, deep yet open fruit.
Quite long. More traditional in style than
Floresta.