Chile’s Caliterra’s new wines are aimed at the pricing sweet spot
By John Schreiner
August 14, 2007
In the next few months, the Chilean producer, Caliterra, will launch a new line of wines in Canada designed to move it up market.
Not that far up market: only to the $16 to $20 a bottle range, the price point that marketers describe as the “sweet spot” because consumers wanting to drink better will pay that much without complaint.
Currently, Caliterra lists three wines in British Columbia, all priced at $12.99, even if the winery insists on calling them reserves. The reserve line stays but soon will be joined by a label called Tribute. The wines are worth looking for when they arrive.
These wines flow from a new strategy at Caliterra, resulting from its liberation from a difficult joint venture with Robert Mondavi.
Caliterra was launched in 1989 as a joint venture between Chile’s Chadwick family, the owners of Errazuriz, and Franciscan Vineyards of California, which then was owned by an expatriate Chilean. Three years later, the Chadwicks bought out that partner.
However, three years after that (in1995) they turned around and let the Robert Mondavi winery buy a 50% interest. The object was to bring Mondavi capital to expanding Caliterra’s vineyards, to building a new winery and to selling value-priced Caliterra wines through the Mondavi network in North America.
Caliterra did ramp up plantings and production but the joint venture began going off the rails early this decade, probably because the Mondavi empire was in difficulty in North America. The huge winery in Chile was completed except for the roof. Shade cloth had to be deployed to keep the sun of the tank farm.
Constellation Brands took over Mondavi in 2004. One of its first moves was to sell its half of Caliterra back to the Chadwicks. They’ve been working on regrouping the winery and rolling out wines at more profitable price points. They still have to put a roof on the winery (thank heaven for Chile’s dry climate) but they have built a proper cellar for the barrels.
The Chadwicks also just hired an experienced winemaker, Sergio Cuadra, 36, a professionally trained enologist who spent the past nine years with Concho Y Toro, Chile’s biggest wine group. He’s also worked with Fetzer in California and spent a year waiting on tables in the eastern United States.
One consequence of that is his idiomatic English. His employers currently have him exercising his language skills in a cross-Canada tour, introducing the Caliterra Tribute wines to wine writers and restaurateurs.
The wines:
Chardonnay Tribute 2006: This wine is made with from the cool Casablanca Valley, located halfway between Santiago and the Pacific. It is great terroir for producing fresh, vibrant wines. Cuadra admits that it is fashionable among consumers to avoid Chardonnay. He blames that on some Chardonnays being just too heavy, full or oak and high in alcohol. His Chardonnay is lively and crisp, with a personality more like a Chablis. It is an excellent food wine.
Malbec Tribute 2005: This is a deeply coloured red, with an explosion of red fruit on the nose. On the palate, it offers satisfying flavours of black cherry and spice. It is a substantial red offering a nice change from the more familiar Bordeaux reds.
Carmenère Tribute 2005: This rare Bordeaux red produces swaggering, ripe reds with flavours of currants, black cherries and with a hint of licorice on the finish. This wine has plenty of power, enough to pair with game and strong cheese.
Shiraz Tribute 2005: A superb red, with classic aromas and flavours of deli meats; with long ripe tannins that give the wine good body and a long finish. It is more elegant than, say, the jammy kind of Shiraz that emerges at the under $20 range from Australia.
Judging from these wines, the Chadwick family finally has Caliterra headed in the right quality direction.
goodgrog@shaw.ca
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