11 Facts About Chilean wine

Chilean wine has a long history for a New World wine region, as it was the 16th century when the Spanish conquistadors brought Vitis vinifera vines with them as they colonized the region.

Chilean wine hired a French oenologist to oversee his vineyard planting and to produce wine in the Bordeaux style.

However the climate in Chile's Chilean wine regions is much more temperate than those regions, comparing more closely to California and Bordeaux.

Since December 1994, the Chilean wine-producing regions have been officially defined as follows, to help identify the different features of wines produced in different parts of Chile's variable geography.

Coquimbo Region contains three Chilean wine-producing sub regions: Elqui, Limari and Choapa, all are coterminous with the provinces of the same name.

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Wine production began in the Elqui Valley in the 1990s when Chilean wine producers began to look at potential viticulture sites outside the Chilean Central Valley.

Administrative region of Valparaiso contains two Chilean wine-producing subregions, the Aconcagua and Casablanca valleys.

Maule lies at the southern end of the Central Valley and is one of the coolest Chilean wine-producing areas in Chile, although the Maule River flowing east to west has a moderating effect on the climate.

Chile's southern Chilean wine regions have more rainfall, lower average temperatures and fewer hours of sunlight than the northern Chilean wine regions.

Chile's Chilean wine laws are more similar to the US appellation system than to France's Appellation d'origine controlee that most of Europe has based their Chilean wine laws on.

White Chilean wine varieties include Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc, Sauvignon vert, Semillon, Riesling, Viognier, Torontel, Pedro Ximenez, Gewurztraminer and Muscat of Alexandria.