Wine Shop

Chile wine history began with the Spanish invasion but it wasn't until their introduction to French wines that their enthusiasm blossomed. European grapes planted in Chile produced a poor quality wine for centuries. From 1938 until 1974, the government forbid planting new vineyards by Chilean wine makers. In 1989, Chile's government changed and opened its doors to the global wine market. Today, foreign investors invade the country, providing the money to research the best environments for each grape variety and to purchase state-of-the-art wine-making equipment. As a result of DNA technology, Chilean Carmenere grapes, believed to be a variant of Chilean Merlot, was found to have originated from Bordeaux’s Grand Vidure grape. Cuttings from those vines had been brought to Chile decades before the phylloxera epidemic which destroyed French vineyards. The Grand Vidure vines in Chile wine regions are the only ones remaining.