Chile is moving beyond its reputation as both the world’s leading supplier of cheap wine and top imitator of Bordeaux. Thanks to its coastal location on the Pacific, Chile gets a lot of cool ocean influence, just like California. Intrepid vineyardists are pioneering out into these coastal locations to bring us a whole new style of wine for Chile and classic “cooler climate” grapes like Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer.



I received a huge batch of samples from a prominent winery that's been at the vanguard of new grapes, new climates (especially Pinot Noir). The winery is called Cono Sur, and it’s recently garnered some high scores from influential critics. I was largely impressed with what I tasted. For the money, there are some good values. But more than that, in tasting today’s product you can see the early iterations of what will in time become quite interesting wines.

Try them for yourself from K&L.