Pioneers and Pests

By the mid-1800s, interest in European-style wine production was taking hold. Well-heeled families many with fortunes earned in the mining industry built extraordinary mansions beyond the city limits and surrounded them with vineyards.
Pioneering naturalist and scientist Claudio Gay brought some 30 Vitis vinifera varieties from France for experimental purposes in the nascent University of Chile's Quinta Normal agricultural center.

Silvestre Ochagavia is generally credited with being the first to introduce French varieties for commercial purposes 20 years later in the Maipo Valley. Others quickly followed suit, and many of Chile's now traditional wineries were formed, including Carmen, Concha y Toro, Cousiño Macul, Errá¡zuriz, San Pedro, Santa Rita, Undurraga, and Urmeneta.

New varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec (Cot), Carménère, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillón, and Riesling produced noble wines that quickly gained popularity and replaced the then-traditional País grape, which was relegated to the country's winemaking extremes, where it is still used today for rustic wines destined for local consumption. Chile had entered into a new phase of its winemaking history, again one of the first in the New World to make serious noble wines. This small South American country was also fortunate; the European wine industry was about to undergo a crisis that would never touch Chile.

Trans-Atlantic exchange brought with it tremendous benefits to both continents, but it also had its downside. European garden enthusiasts had unwittingly imported a devastating vineyard pest Phylloxera hidden in the roots of America's native grape vines that were beautiful, despite being useless for wine production. Europe's Vitis vinifera vines were defenseless against the tiny and voracious louse, which advanced unchecked, quickly decimating thousands of hectares of ancient Old World vineyards along the way. The pest was re-introduced to the Americas with the import of Vitis vinifera vines, yet for reasons that have never fully been understood, Chile remains Phylloxera-free to this day. < back - next >