Chapter 6 - Drinking History
When the first grapes were harvested from viña Flora in the summer of 1967, Salvador Allende was President of Chile. In Itata, small growers tended to small plots of old bush vines, inherited from their parents, who had inherited them from theirs. The grapes were turned into pipeño, simple but delicious table wine, made mainly for the family’s own consumption.
Everything changed on 11 September 1973, when Allende was ousted by Augusto Pinochet, a general who seized power with the help of the US and installed a military dictatorship. What followed were years of curtailed freedom for most Chileans. More than 35,000 people were disappeared, tortured or murdered at the hands of the regime. When the Pinochet era is discussed over a glass of wine today, a “but” often lingers on Chileans’ lips. Pinochet’s economic advisors, many educated in the US, were firm adherents of Friedman’s theories of open markets, privatization and deregulation. Their ideas shaped Pinochet’s ambition to make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs.
An export-driven wine industry emerged. Chile’s diverse micro-climates and vast expanses of available land proved gold. Any European style of wine could be produced - at a fraction of the cost and at ten times the scale. Industry magnates captured the market and introduced Chilean wines in supermarkets all around the world. Small family wineries disappeared. Their lands and old vines sold to large producers, replanted with international grape varieties, other crops or lucrative pine and eucalyptus trees. Chile’s economy boomed, human rights were curtailed, Europeans discovered Chilean Sauvignon Blancs.
In 1988, after 17 years in power, Pinochet was voted out. 55% of Chileans wanted a return to democracy, 45% still preferred Pinochet. The divide over his rule still looms over dinner tables in Santiago today. It is perhaps one explanation why Chileans are the most reserved of Latin Americans when meeting new people. The possibility that the person opposite you might trade democracy for economic prosperity is difficult to stomach - even over a nice bottle of wine.
In the 2010s, a new generation of Chilean winemakers rediscovered Itata’s abandoned old vines. Armed with a deeper understanding of the soils and guided by ancient knowledge passed down through generations of grape growers, they started making new wines from old vines. Leo is one of them.
Viña Flora endured it all. And when you drink a glass of NR4, her old vines Moscatel, you are drinking Chile’s history: the good, the bad and the ugly.