“My visit did not disappoint me and I can’t wait to return,” said Isabelle Legeron, a personality in the world of wine, before leaving Chile, who was not only the first French Master of Wine and the founder of the international Raw Wine fair. , but she is part of the 50 most influential women in the world. world of wine.
Invited by ProChile, Legeron visited seven wine-growing valleys in the country, including the Itata Valley, an area that stood out for the quality of its natural wines, a segment of niche wines that, as its name indicates, are obtained with the minimum of intervention in both vineyard cultivation and winemaking, a characteristic shared by a large number of vineyards in Itata.
He commented that, “this was my first visit to Itata. The last time I was in Chile was in 2008, but unfortunately I only visited the Maule Valley. I have closely followed the development of that region (Itata), in terms of natural wines and regularly tasting wines from producers such as Macatho, Leo Erazo, Pino Román, Mingaco and Gustavo Riffo, among many other world-class producers. I am very excited by the extremely high quality of natural wines that are coming out of Itata right now, which attracted me to visit the region in person. “They have incredible terroirs, a very diverse landscape and very old vines that combine with an amazing energy of very talented vintners and wine makers.”
ProChile invitation
María José Álvarez, national coordinator of Wines, from ProChile, who accompanied Legeron during his tour, explained that “the arrangements for Isabelle’s visit began (before the pandemic) thanks to the impulse of our commercial representative in Montreal, Óscar Arriagada , hand in hand with the Food area of ProChile, from where the wine sector is worked.”
Isabelle Legeron spent 12 days in the country, during which she visited natural wine producers in the regions of Valparaíso and Biobío.
“In Itata and with the aim of optimizing time, group visits were made for a couple of days, which allowed us to meet with several wine producers. They were: Leonardo Erazo (A los Viñateros Bravos, Rogue Vine), Macatho, Tres C, Gustavo Riffo, Gustavo Martínez, Zaranda, La Kura, Anarco Wines, Mingaco, Pino Román, Strange Grapes, and Tierra y Fuego,” explained Álvarez .
Niche wines
The professional maintained that “Isabelle’s visit becomes a fundamental international factor for the dissemination of the attributes of the region in terms of the production of natural wines, the respect of producers for the environment, biodiversity, care of the environment and the protection of traditions and territorial identity.”
The ProChile sector specialist contextualized that, “since 2017, ProChile defined its strategy to support small producers, in what has been called niche wines, understanding these as producers on a human scale, with social impact and with a strong asset rescue component. , a category that adds value to the promotion of Chilean wines. This is because these types of wines have higher average prices than the industry in general (US$29 per 9-liter box is the average for Chilean exports). Thus, what began by highlighting the so-called heritage strains, then advanced towards a slightly broader range that, as ProChile, we have called Niche Wines where there are organic, biodynamic, signature wines and of course, natural wines.
“In this sense,” he continued, “what Raw Wine (international natural wine fair, with several editions around the planet) is doing is of interest to us. In addition, our commercial offices visited the different editions where we saw the possibility of doing something with them and bringing them to Chile. Thus, before the pandemic, this visit began to take shape, which, due to scheduling reasons and the quarantines brought about by Covid-19, had not been able to take place until today.”
