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By RICHARD VAN
SICKLE - Otawa Sun
It can be the toughest
test in the world: Standing before your peers
and being judged even though those peers are a
very stodgy bunch and don't want you to stand
anywhere near them. They want you to fail and
take your rightful place at the back of the class.
In the wine world,
there is a pecking order. It starts in France
and works its way down from there, or, at least
that's what they would have you believe.
That pecking order
makes it very difficult for New World wine producers
to be taken seriously when in the company of self-anointed
royalty. The Old World vintners are a selfish
lot and any who try to join the clique face fierce
resistance.
Oh, there have
been successful campaigns from the New World.
Australia got pushy with its Penfolds Grange,
Napa Valley has gained acceptance with a raft
of big, red cabernets and blends. And now Chile,
that little sliver of a country, bordered by the
Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the
east and about as far from France as you can get,
wants a piece of the action.
And it's more than
willing to be judged against the best there is.
And so it was,
for the first time in North America, 60 wine journalists
and sommeliers from across Canada were summoned
to Toronto to judge top cabernet-based wines from
Chile's Vina Errazuriz estates against the best
from Bordeaux and Italy. It seemed like a David
vs. Goliath battle. First-growth Bordeaux from
the 2000 vintage against Chile? The French must
be laughing!
Well, not anymore.
When Vina Errazuriz proprietor Eduardo Chadwick
conducted the first such tasting with similar
wines in Berlin in 2004 the results were shocking.
The top two wines were from Chile with Bordeaux
placing third and fourth.
At the Toronto
event, when the votes were tallied, the magnificent
Chateau Margaux 2000, a monumental wine and perhaps
the greatest wine I have ever tried, was a clear-cut
favourite with Chateau Latour 2000 a close second.
Then a Chilean
cabernet-based wine, the Errazuriz Don Maximiano
Founder's Reserve 2003, placed third with Antinori's
icon Italian wine, Tignanello, squeezing in just
ahead of another pair of Chilean wines -- the
Sena 2003 and the Vinedo Chadwick 2000.
Rounding out the
group of 10 in order was Sena 2000, Vinedo Chadwick
2003, Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2000 and, in last
place, another iconic Italian, Sassicaia 2000.
The experiment
is a success for Errazuriz when you consider that
his wines fare very well against top Bordeaux
and Italian wines and cost a fraction of the price.
The Chilean wines are all under $100 with the
Bordeaux wines, if you could get them, $800 and
up.
Octubre 26 de 2006 |
