Nearly 500 Years of Chilean Wine

Wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) are not native to the Americas; they arrived with the Spanish in the 1500s. Early attempts to form vineyards in more northerly climes, such as the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru proved unsuccessful; in Chile, however, the vine found its first true New World home.
The Catholic missionaries who followed the Spanish Conquistadors lamented the lack of wine that was essential for celebrating religious rites, and they set about to resolve the problem.
Fray Francisco de Carabantes is widely credited with bringing the first vines probably Paí­s (pronounced " pah-EES" and known as "Mission" in California) into Chile through the port of Concepción round 1548. Such was the success that vineyards were quickly planted throughout the country from the Limarí Valley in the north to Bí­o-Báío Valley in the south precisely the areas that still delimit the vast majority of Chile's wine production today.
Of course the desire for wine in Chile was not limited to the Church-there were plenty of secular uses for the traditional European beverage of choice. The thirsty residents of the burgeoning capital city of Santiago also clamored for wine, and the surrounding Maipo Valley proved to be a ready and abundant source of red wine. Improvements in maritime transportation made cross-Atlantic travel much more viable by the early 19th century. Chile, freshly emancipated from Spain, yearned for knowledge of its European roots, and members of the country's wealthiest families embarked upon an intercontinental pilgrimage that would change Chilean life and culture in many ways. France was a favorite destination, and soon French customs, from food to clothing to architecture, flourished among Chiles upper classes. It did not take long for the first French-style wineries to make an appearance as well.
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