This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
Emiliana hails ‘Chile’s first organic sparkling’
Chile’s biggest organic estate has produced the country’s ‘first ever organic sparkling wine’.
Emiliana’s 2014 Organic Brut Sparkling Wine is available in the UK now (Photo: Emiliana)
The 60/40 chardonnay and pinot noir brut sparkling blend has been made using the Charmat method. It has an ABV of 12.5% and will carry a recommended retail price of £12.99. It will be marketed to the on-trade and independent wine retailers.
The grapes for the new sparkling wine were grown in Emiliana’s Casablanca vineyards. The first vintage, 2014, produced a run of 14,000 bottles, but for the 2015 the company is planning to triple production in order to further exploit the growing market for good-quality, low-priced sparkling wine, Emiliano’s European export director Andrés Gillmore told the drinks business.
Gillmore added that the new brut sparkling was a welcome addition to Emiliana’s portfolio in a category in which Chile has been slow off the mark.
“I think [Chile] has been slow in the sparkling wine category in general. It’s always been at the very cheap end for the local market. Only in recent years have all the wineries been developing sparkling [wine]. Only now do you see sparkling wines at the bigger price categories, similar to maybe the cremants. It’s for sure a market that is increasing worldwide.
The company is also working on producing an organic Champagne method sparkling wine from its vine holdings in Limeri for release in late-2016 or early 2017, Gillmore said.
Emiliana, which is Chile’s biggest organic wine producer, with vineyards in Casablanca, Maipo and Rapel (Cachapoal and Colchagua) Valleys, is owned by the country’s biggest producer, Concha y Toro. The entire estate has been certified biodynamic by Demeter since 2012.
Recently the db revealed that the company is attempting to produce the country’s first large-volume, no added-sulphur wine for a European supermarket.
The db looks closely at the growing natural and organic wine movement in Chile in the September edition of the magazine.