Ground-breaking winery aims to produce the best red wine in the world

Lesser known than the Maipo region, the Colchagua Valley in central Chile is home to a surprisingly developed wine tourism industry.

I’m sitting at a wooden table with a glass of carmenere, watching show-jumpers practise under a tight blue sky. Around this point, on this perfect Sunday afternoon, it strikes me that of the dozens of places the Spanish christened Santa Cruz, my favourite is this one in the heart of Chile.

Grape harvest.Credit: Alamy

The same is true for Francisco and Connie Poblete, whose Colchagua Wine Tours company specialises in demystifying Chilean wine and this whole region for visitors.

“There are a lot of wine regions in Chile, but I think out of all of them, we are the one with the best infrastructure – and it’s improving, too,” says Francisco as we watch another horse daintily leap over a fence. We are having lunch at Vina Viu Manent, in the heart of this red wine country two hours’ drive south from Santiago, drinking wine that has travelled no more than a couple of hundred metres from vines to the glasses in front of us.

Francisco explains that rivers running with Andean meltwater keep the area irrigated, even when the Chilean sunshine is relentless. As a consequence, most grapes thrive here, especially red varietals.

The region has been productive for decades, but while infrastructure and visitor numbers were improving before the pandemic, the amount of land dedicated for wine was actually dropping.

Pressing bounty.Credit: Alamy

Some of the larger wineries began to sell less-profitable fields for cherry production, while other, more delicate grapes had been replaced by grafts of hardier options to combat the effects of climate change. Nonetheless, today the industry still dominates this picturesque valley.

“Chile can feel like an island really – we have some of the driest deserts in the world to the north and glaciers to the south, then the Pacific on one side and a huge mountain range on the other,” says Francisco.

“We’re a little isolated, so the agricultural environment is not like other places. Maybe it’s not such a surprise that carmenere was rediscovered here.”

For almost a century, following the phylloxera plague in Europe, it was thought the grape was lost. By chance, in the 1990s experts visiting Chile noticed that the leaves on what had been labelled merlot were, in fact, carmenere. Ever since, the nation has established itself as the world’s largest producer of the grape.

Now, almost every vineyard in this region produces it, either to stand alone or for blends. This includes big international brands like Montes and Concha y Toro. The former is perhaps the biggest player in the nearby Apalta Valley, with a huge modern HQ overseeing vast hectares of vines. In Fuegos it’s also home to perhaps the finest restaurant in the region, the sort of sleek, upmarket place you’d expect to find in the likes of California’s Napa Valley, or over the Andes in Mendoza.

Those standards are still uncommon in Colchagua, but only a few kilometres north as the Andean condor flies – but about an hour of driving – Vik Chile is at a higher level still.

Standing on a promontory in the middle of the Cachapoal Valley with a large reservoir behind and vineyards seeming to stretch ahead all the way to the Andes ahead, it could hardly have a more perfect setting.

This ground-breaking winery and art hotel project is driven by a singularly minded family. The Viks have an ambition that is as bold as it is simple: to make the best red wine in the world. Not in some loose, ambiguous sense, not to make the best red wine they can, but to be recognised as the best made by anyone, anywhere.

To that end, for the last few years, they have been producing a red blend that has been incrementally rising up the wine charts. Simply titled Vik, it’s the highlight of a tasting visit to the impressive on-site cellars. The magic formula shifts depending on how the harvest has been, but it’s always led by a fabulous cabernet sauvignon.

As well as wine, the Norwegian-American Vik family have a profound love of art, something that is abundantly clear the moment I check into my Puro Vik suite. Each of the 22 rooms and seven bungalows on site has a different artistic theme. Much like the bid to have the world’s best wine, these creative visions are absolutely committed. From beautifully realised replicas of Japanese inns to eye-popping pop art, each room has painstakingly selected decor, paintings, sculptures and furniture.

On a hotel tour, but to see these rooms, each an artwork in its own right, feels unusually like a treat – and not just because they are followed by another glass of the good stuff while the setting sun paints the Andes pink.

THE DETAILS

Colchagua Wine Tours can organise wine tours of varying complexity and length, depending on your interests, including pick ups and private drivers from the moment you land in Chile. colchaguawinetours.com

For more information on Vik Chile’s wine and hotel see vikwine.com