I think it would be fair to say that I rarely get excited about Chilean wines. That’s not to say I don’t like some of them – I do – it’s just that I seldom find wines that make me want to drink another glass (or, if the timing’s right, the rest of the bottle).
I think my lack of enthusiasm has something to do with the corporate nature of much of Chile’s winemaking. Big companies have shareholders to report to, and so seldom take risks. With risk comes the possibility of failure, of course, but also the opportunity to create something unique.
One company whose wines DO often get me stirred up, though, are those made by Concha y Toro. Now C y T could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be referred to as a boutique operation, however there’s something of the boutique winery mentality applied to the way the company allows its winemakers a certain amount of autonomy in terms of the way they can mould their vinous creations to their own personality.
was struck by this anew last week, when I had the opportunity to taste some of C y T’s wines over lunch at Nahm. For those who don’t know it, Nahm is the brainchild of David Thompson, an Australian who knows more about Thai cuisine than a khlong-full of native chefs. The restaurant has had its ups and downs over the years (it was the first Thai restaurant in London to hold a Michelin star, but has recently lost its starred status), but it’s still the go-to place for anyone wanting to experience Thai haute cuisine.-
I’d been invited to lunch by Alvaro Marcos Garcia, a former sommelier who’s job it now is to spread the C y T word among his former colleagues. At the start of this year, Garcia decided that his marketing budget was best spent on getting sommeliers (and the occasional journalist) to join him for a themed lunch – in this case the focus was on aromatic wines.
We kicked off, however, with a glass of the brisk, mineral Maycas del Limari Reserva Especial Chardonnay 2008. The wine showed a fair bit of winemaker influence in its oaky spice and buttery malolactic notes, but Marcelo Papa (the winemaker in question) had used these tools judiciously, and they were in balance with the wine’s pineapple, citrus and stone fruit flavours. The cool nights of the (near-desert) Limari Valley had clearly had a profound influence on the wine’s brisk acidity and the tension between ripe fruit and moderate alcohol. As we we sipped at the wine, we were served an appetiser of minced chicken, prawn and peanuts cooked with chilli and palm sugar, and served on slices of pineapple and mandarin that complement the wine’s fruit nicely.
We were then poured a glass each of the Terrunyo Sauvignon Blanc 2009 from Casablanca Valley and the Cono Sur 2010 Vision Riesling from the southern valley of Bio Bio. The Sauvignon Blanc was made by Ignacio Recabarren, a talented winemaker who’s spent much of his life exploring the possibilities afforded by the grape. He picks at varying degrees of ripeness in order to create a wine that affords more aromatic and textural complexity than it might otherwise. In this instance, the wine showed flavours that ran the gamut from less-than-ripe herbaceousness and tomato leaf to ripe passion fruit, all offset by zesty acidity.
The second wine of the flight, 
the Riesling, was a pretty wine, whose crisp acidity was in precise balance with a touch of residual sugar. You couldn’t really notice the sweetness – unless you were looking for it. What you saw, instead, was a rounder, fruitier, more generous palate than many New World Rieslings (whose bone dryness tends to make the acidity appear ostentatiously high). Nice work by winemaker Adolfo Hurtado, a third member of C y T’s talented team.
the Riesling, was a pretty wine, whose crisp acidity was in precise balance with a touch of residual sugar. You couldn’t really notice the sweetness – unless you were looking for it. What you saw, instead, was a rounder, fruitier, more generous palate than many New World Rieslings (whose bone dryness tends to make the acidity appear ostentatiously high). Nice work by winemaker Adolfo Hurtado, a third member of C y T’s talented team.
We tried both wines with a dish of crispy noodles with prawns, beansprouts and pickled garlic. We’d started off with the notion that the Sauvignon Blanc would be the perfect match for the dish, but the lack of fresh green herbs meant that the wine failed to light up in any way when paired with the food. It wasn’t a bad match, by any means, just not an exciting one. The Riesling, on the other hand, proved to be a somewhat better partner, as the dish seemed to bring out a wonderfully zesty note of limes on the finish. The match wasn’t ideal, though, as dish and wine seemed to fight with each other initially, before that lovely citrus fruit had time to kick in.
Next dish up was a lango
ustine salad with rambutans (a fleshy, perfumed fruit that’s related to the lychee), lemongrass, toasted coconut and a zingy dressing. I kind of expected this to go well with the Riesling, and it did – or at least the salad elements did. The langoustines themselves seemed better matched to the next wine we were poured, a surprisingly refreshing Cono Sur Vision Gewurztraminer 2010 from Casablanca. I say surprisingly refreshing because I think Gewurztraminer can often be blowsy and overblown, but this was quite lean in style, with lively acidity highlighting the intense rose petal and lychee aromatics. Those aromatics, and the slightly weightier body of the wine, harmonised nicely with the sweet langoustine flesh and the perfume of the rambutans. The Sauvignon Blanc, which should have worked well with all those coriander leaves, chillies and citrus-spiked dressing, was a bit of a disappointment, appearing somewhat flat and washed out when teamed with the salad.
ustine salad with rambutans (a fleshy, perfumed fruit that’s related to the lychee), lemongrass, toasted coconut and a zingy dressing. I kind of expected this to go well with the Riesling, and it did – or at least the salad elements did. The langoustines themselves seemed better matched to the next wine we were poured, a surprisingly refreshing Cono Sur Vision Gewurztraminer 2010 from Casablanca. I say surprisingly refreshing because I think Gewurztraminer can often be blowsy and overblown, but this was quite lean in style, with lively acidity highlighting the intense rose petal and lychee aromatics. Those aromatics, and the slightly weightier body of the wine, harmonised nicely with the sweet langoustine flesh and the perfume of the rambutans. The Sauvignon Blanc, which should have worked well with all those coriander leaves, chillies and citrus-spiked dressing, was a bit of a disappointment, appearing somewhat flat and washed out when teamed with the salad.
We’d also been poured a Pinot Noir by this stage, the Cono Sur Vision Pinot 2010 from Colchagua. I have to admit that I’m not usually a great fan of Chilean Pinot – I find a lot of it seems either heavy handed, over-ripe and over-alcoholic, or quite mean and green. This version, I’m pleased to say, was a more than acceptable interpretation of the grape, chock-full of bouncy bright red fruit that was barely held in check by ripe, supple tannins and juicy acidity. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t go terribly well with either of the shellfish dishes, not the clear soup with minced prawns, pork, squid and chinese greens.
Perhaps it wasn’t meant to – althou
gh it did look like it had been lined up to partner the soup, which provided a soothing note after the turbo-charged flavours of the salad. Rather unexpectedly, the best match for the soup turned out to be the Riesling. Perhaps it was because the relatively neutral broth provided such a good backdrop for the wine’s bright fruit. The Gewurztraminer seemed to dominate the soup, as did the bouncy Pinot fruit. Nor was the next wine to be poured much of a match. The Cono Sur Ocio Pinot Noir 2009 from Casablanca is C y T’s top-of-the-range Pinot, and while I was initially put off by the note of volatile acidity on the nose, I was very impressed by its layers of flavours, its silky texture and its fine-grained, elegant tannins.
gh it did look like it had been lined up to partner the soup, which provided a soothing note after the turbo-charged flavours of the salad. Rather unexpectedly, the best match for the soup turned out to be the Riesling. Perhaps it was because the relatively neutral broth provided such a good backdrop for the wine’s bright fruit. The Gewurztraminer seemed to dominate the soup, as did the bouncy Pinot fruit. Nor was the next wine to be poured much of a match. The Cono Sur Ocio Pinot Noir 2009 from Casablanca is C y T’s top-of-the-range Pinot, and while I was initially put off by the note of volatile acidity on the nose, I was very impressed by its layers of flavours, its silky texture and its fine-grained, elegant tannins.
The Pin
ots turned out to be good matches for the next (and thankfully for my waistline, last) two courses, a mild aromatic chicken and potato curry, sweetened and thickened with coconut cream, and a punchy, pungent dish of braised oxtail with tomatoes, herbs, lime and plenty of chillies. The bouncy Vision Pinot, with its note of oaky sweetness and its generous fruit, worked beautifully with the creamy, rich flavours of the chicken curry. It wasn’t complex enough to tackle the braised oxtail, which would have worked perfectly with the Ocio Pinot if it had contained somewhat fewer chillies. The depth of flavour of the long-braised meat chimed perfectly with the layered wine, but the heat of the chillies fought against both the wine’s tannin and its oak. It made me want to strip the stew back to its essentials, a long-cooked, melting piece of meat with an intense, deep gravy, perhaps nuanced with some star anise to bring out the spicy notes in the wine.
ots turned out to be good matches for the next (and thankfully for my waistline, last) two courses, a mild aromatic chicken and potato curry, sweetened and thickened with coconut cream, and a punchy, pungent dish of braised oxtail with tomatoes, herbs, lime and plenty of chillies. The bouncy Vision Pinot, with its note of oaky sweetness and its generous fruit, worked beautifully with the creamy, rich flavours of the chicken curry. It wasn’t complex enough to tackle the braised oxtail, which would have worked perfectly with the Ocio Pinot if it had contained somewhat fewer chillies. The depth of flavour of the long-braised meat chimed perfectly with the layered wine, but the heat of the chillies fought against both the wine’s tannin and its oak. It made me want to strip the stew back to its essentials, a long-cooked, melting piece of meat with an intense, deep gravy, perhaps nuanced with some star anise to bring out the spicy notes in the wine.
The whole experience got me thinking that Thai food, with its challenging flavour profile, is perhaps best matched to wines that have a strong aromatic presence themselves. A little residual sugar in the wine probably helps to balance out any chilli heat in the food, but you can probably get away with vivid flavours and ripe fruit at a pinch. Where the last Pinot failed (only just), it was in part because it was too structured (too much tannin and too much oak, none of which were out of balance with the fruit but which clashed with the chillies in the oxtail) and in part because its complexity (a key reason that it was so attractive as a wine) didn’t sit easily with the complexity of the food. When it comes to finding a wine that goes with Thai food, perfumed and fruity – but not too complex – is, it seems, the best recipe for success.
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