Commemorating Chile’s milestone in fine wine with a special Toronto tasting honouring a legacy of excellence – a special contribution from Tony Aspler
In October, I was invited to a tasting in Toronto to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the ‘Berlin Tasting’.
Reminiscent of the ‘Judgement of Paris’ – when Napa Valley wines outscored Bordeaux and Burgundy in a blind tasting – in Berlin in 2004, Eduardo Chadwick’s Chilean wines triumphed over the five First Growth Bordeaux and Tuscany’s Solaia.
Eduardo reminded me that I was the first Canadian wine writer to visit Chile in 1985.
Read Also: Icon Wines: The evolution of Chile’s fine wine renaissance
On Sunday March 3rd of that year, I had been visiting Miguel Torres’ Santa Digna winery in Curico, a small town 185 kilometers south of the capital, Santiago. The Torres family had purchased the 230-hectare property there in 1979, the first European investment in the Chilean wine industry.
In those years, the large Chilean wineries had monstrous bottle-washing machines; and they aged their wines in huge wood casks made from the indigenous rauli beechwood tree which imparted a characteristic flavour that most international tasters found disagreeable.
Tony Aspler (left) poses for a photo with Eduardo Chadwick at the Toronto tasting, commemorating 20 years since the ‘Berlin Tasting’.
Torres created a revolution in the quality of Chilean wines by introducing stainless steel tanks and French barriques.
On that fateful March 3, 1985 Sunday, Miguel Torres and I were seated in the house of his vineyard manager in Curico. We were enjoying a glass of his Santa Digna Bella Terra Sauvignon Blanc 1984 when the Algarrobo earthquake struck.
It was measured as a Force 8 ‘quake.
At first, the noise sounded like an express train approaching and after a few seconds the walls of the house began to shake. Pictures fell off the walls and Miguel suggested it was time to leave.
Outdoors, it was like standing on a waterbed – the ground was heaving and undulating under our feet. The tarmac had separated from the road and was waving like a great black ribbon about a foot above it.
One had the terrifying feeling that the ground was about to open up and then swallow you. The quake left 177 people dead, 2,575 injured, 85,358 houses damaged or destroyed, and about a million people homeless.
The force of the tectonic movement crumpled steel tanks like beer cans and split open barrels. Rivers of wine flowed in the streets.
One of the wineries I visited on that trip was Errazuriz in the Aconcagua Valley. The property was created in 1870 by Don Maximiano Errazuriz whose memory has been preserved in the cabernet-based Founder’s Reserve wine produced every year since 1983. The 2001 vintage was one of the wines featured in the 2004 Berlin tasting (see the results below).
20 years after the famed ‘Berlin Tasting’ put Chilean fine wine on the map, the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Toronto hosted a special anniversary tasting.
Chile’s signature grape, carmenère (an old Bordeaux variety imported from France in the 1850s and long thought to be merlot) is celebrated by Errazuriz in a wine labelled KAI. In the local indigenous language, the word translates as ‘vine.’ KAI debuted in 2005.
In 1955 Eduardo Chadwick partnered with the late Robert Mondavi to create a wine to showcase the potential of Chile’s vineyards. The result was Seña, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, carmenère and malbec, petit verdot and cabernet franc.
But the undisputed star of the portfolio is Viñedo Chadwick, the first Chilean wine to receive a 100-point score.
When I first visited Errazuriz, the cabernet sauvignon vineyard where this wine is grown was a polo field – the passionate pursuit of Eduardo’s late father, Don Alfonso.
All photos courtesy of Mark Anthony Wine and Spirits.
At the 20th anniversary celebration, we tasted the following wines:
Three vintages of Don Maximiano Errazuriz Founder’s Reserve – 1987, 2011 and 2021.
Two vintages of KAI – 2011 and 2021.
Three vintages of Seña – 1998, 2011 and 2021.
Three vintages of Viñedo Chadwick – 2000 (the second vintage of this wine), 2014 and 2021.
All the wines were superlative. And I found myself giving 100 points to each of the Viñedo Chadwick vintages! Which started me thinking that Eduardo Chadwick could justifiably be called, ‘Chile’s Robert Mondavi.’
Results of the 2004 Berlin Tasting (in numerical order):
- VINEDO CHADWICK 2000
- SENA 2001
- CHATEAU LAFITE-ROTHSCHILD 2000
- CHATEAU MARGAUX 2001
- SENA 2000
- VINEDO CHADWICK 2001
- CHATEAU MARGAUX 2000
- CHATEAU LATOUR 2000
- DON MAXIMIANO FOUNDER’S RESERVE 2001
- SOLAIA 2000
Tony Aspler is an internationally known writer, speaker, and wine expert, based in Niagara. Tony has been writing about wine for over 50 years – he was the wine columnist for The Toronto Star for 21 years and has authored 27 books, most of which are on wine and food. In December 2007, Tony was awarded the Order of Canada. In 2012, Tony was the first Canadian to be inducted into the New York Media Wine Writers Hall of Fame. In that year he was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. In 2017, Tony was awarded Spain’s Officers Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain’s highest civilian decoration. in 2000, Tony co-founded the charitable foundation, Grapes for Humanity (www.grapesforhumanity.com).
