Good Morning!

I received my Wine Spectator in the mail and I always look forward to reading whatever the subjects covered might be. Today, When I saw that they had a list of the top wines coming out of Chile and the article and research was done by James Molesworth I was more excited. He reviewed 450 wines and his top picks amount to about 33 wines in total.

I had been making my own list of wineries I wanted to try when I am traveling trough Chile in April, so I was really excited to see many of the wineries I wanted to try are also on his list. I was most excited to see that his top pick is Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2007…I get to work the harvest at Casa Lapostolle! So I plan on working hard during the day and trying every wine possible every night. I will take notes, video and pictures to share with you. We will call it a virtual tasting!

Another friend of mine who likes wine a lot but is not in the wine business has been traveling Argentina and Chile over the past 6 weeks. He called me two days ago with a list of places I have to see and wines to try and he said the facility at Lapostolle is awesome, and he loved their wines and then he told me about another vineyard/winery called Vina Montes. With these kinda referrals I just do not know how I will sleep for the entire week before I leave…it will feel like the night before school starts and Christmas eve all rolled into one!

The best Chilean wine I have had so far in all my tastings has been Concha Y Toro Puente Alto Don Melchor 2007….I could drink that for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I have been reading tons on what makes Chilean wines so special and Chile is kinda where California wines were back in the 80’s and 90’s starting to really flourish and get the attention they richly deserve.

One bit of information about the vineyards of Chile, they have never been infected with phylloxera. Phylloxera is a vine attacking disease that once it gets in the vines you have to take them all out and get a resistant root stock to get healthy grapes growing again. This wicked guy has hit every other grape growing region in the world but Chile has not had this problem.

Anyway…my world today revolves around Chilean wines, who knows what I will love tomorrow but Chile is on my mind today!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi