The burgeoning and varied region of Rapel to the immediate south of Maipo encompasses the valleys of Cachapoal in the north (including the Rancagual, Requioa, an Rengo areas -- all names occasionally found on labels), and fashionable Colchagua to the south, including San Fernando, Nancagual, Chimbarongo, and Marchigue, and Apalta, where Montes and Lapostolle, are based. Cachapoal and, especially, Colchagua, are names more often found on labels than Rapel, which tends to be reserved for blends from both subregions. Colchagua, where Luis Felipe Edwards has planted vines as high as 3300 ft., has earned itself a reputation for Chile's most succulent and concentrated Merlot. As throughout Chile, soils vary enormously, even with small zones such as Colchagua, but there is some of Merlot's classic partner clay here as well as the usual Chilean cocktail of silty loam and sand, and some volcanic areas. Red and white blends, such as this from Altair and Calyptra, are becoming some of Cachapoal's more respected wince.
Quite a way down the PanAmerican Highway, with its ancient trucks and unpredictable fauna, are the vineyards of Curico, including the Lontue zone, which is often specified on wine labels. Here the climate becomes slightly more temperate and irrigation is less likely to be a necessity. Average rainfall is ten times higher than in the Elqui Valley, the frost risk is very much higher, and the Coastal Rage extend far enough east to efficiently block any Pacific influence. Miguel Torres of Catalunya famously invested in a winery here in 1979, the same year that Baron Philippe de Rothschild struck another seminal transatlantic deal with Robert Mondavi of Cailifornia, and this act of faith in wine country once thought of as being impossibly far south was followed by many others. The San Pedro winery at Molinas is surrounded by South America's larger block of vines (3000 acres/1200 ha), which is run like much in the Chilean wine industry, with a technical precision far from any Latin American stereotype.
I proofread it this morning, though, so it should be in better shape than last night.
