As we discussed yesterday the Kingston Family Vineyards case I thought it would be interesting to learn a little bit more about the Casablanca Valley in Chile, where “the farm” is located.
The Casablanca Valley is located on the northwest of Santiago (the capital and political center of Chile) and 30 kms away, in a straight line, from the port of Valparaíso (the main Chilean port and a mandatory stop for every tourist).
Casablanca is one of the few valleys in the country that is not directly associated with a river. It has an extension of about 16 kilometers in east-west direction and within the same valley there are three large sub-sectors: high (the warmest sector, near the Cordillera de la Costa mountains), medium (around the town of Casablanca) and low (the coolest, towards the west).
The climate of the valley is semi-arid Mediterranean, with oceanic influence and depending on the location, the soils have a variety of profiles. Closer to the mountains some of the plantations are on floors of granite in advanced state of decomposition. In the flat areas closer to the coast the soils are clayey-silty-sandy. These are highly permeable soils of medium depth that together with the cold influence of the ocean and the Mediterranean climate generate the slow maturation environment. This translates into fresh wines with balanced acidity, rich aromas and delicate flavors.
Casablanca Valley is a relatively new valley to the Chilean wine industry. The realization that Casablanca had great potential to produce cold climate grapes came in the mid-1980s. Today it’s one of the most popular valleys of the central zone, thanks to the fact that it has been able to diversify its offer of wines, understanding and learning about its climate and soils. Not only white wines, but red varieties such as Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Syrah take advantage of the cooler valley conditions, obtaining very good results. Casablanca is currently the largest producer of Chardonnay in the country and the third producer of Sauvignon Blanc. And as we learned, some of the best Pinot Noirs in the country come from this area. Being so close to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, two important destinations for tourism, Casablanca has become an important tourism center as well, receiving thousands of visitors each year.
I really enjoyed reading your post, especially as I'm heading to visit Kingston Family Vineyards in Casablanca over winter break. Courtney Kingston actually visited our third pre-trip meeting this evening, and shared some perspectives on the climate aspect of their operations that you might find interesting. She mentioned that with climate change and Chile's water scarcity, they will likely have to adapt to warm weather wines in the future. Rather than move their operations to maintain cold weather climates, they will adapt their wines to the climate. For example, they are currently thinking of trying Gamay, as it does better in the warm and requires less water.
ReplyDeleteWe went to Kingston Family Vineyards and a couple other wineries in the Casablanca Valley as part of our GST, and it was absolutely wonderful. When we were there we also heard about the relative water scarcity and some of the impacts on the varietal selection you discuss. I hope that, despite any climate-change-related difficulties, the area is able to continue to grow and expand in production and prominence, such that it is what the world most associates with Chilean wine. Right now, Chile is still mostly known for bulk wine, large producers, and low quality. We also visited the headquarters of Concha y Toro on the GST, which is absolutely huge; while it was very impressive from a business, tourism, and operations perspective, the wines - even their premium offerings - were nothing compared to the wines we had at Kingston and elsewhere in Casablanca.
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