Winery Casa MontesAlzamora Cabernet Franc

There are no easy vintages – and that was especially true in Chile this year. The widespread drought that has been affecting the country for several years – and the forecast of a dry and hot summer – indicated that 2023 would be a challenging year. But in mid-January the situation dramatically worsened, with voracious fires in Maule, Ñuble, Itata and Bío Bío, where more than 50,000ha of forests were devastated. The fire took towns, vineyards, wineries and at least 24 human lives in its wake. A t ...

Just over 6,400km in length, Chile is a country with a fascinating range of terroirs. This is fully reflected in the diversity of its wines. Heavily influenced by air currents from the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east, all of Chile’s wine producing valleys have their own microclimates, as well as distinct complex soil composition. This variety means that individual vineyards experienced the harvest conditions of 2022 in different ways. It was a year that saw the continuation o ...

With most of the grapes safely in the wineries by the first week of April, Argentina brought an end to its 2023 harvest almost a month earlier than usual. The reasons for the haste date back to the early mornings of 31 October and 1 November, 2022, when frosts struck to determine the course of this unusual year. Alejandro Vigil, the president of Wines of Argentina, director of production, vineyards and wineries at Catena Zapata and creator of El Enemigo Wines, sums things up. ‘We had an early ha ...