A typical summer day unfolds in the Colchagua Valley as a powerful sun rises over the vineyards in the Andean foothills that form the region’s eastern edge. Hours later, that same sun will become a fireball in a cloudless azure sky. Below, on the valley floor and up the craggy hillsides that mark the southern and northern boundaries of Chile’s most textbook wine valley, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère and other vines soak up potent solar rays on their way to eventual ripeness. A glowing sunset over the Pacific Ocean provides the day’s closing act; with it, temperatures plummet over coastal Sauvignon Blanc plantings. Finally, the stars come out en masse.
It sounds like a dream, but, from November to April, this scenario plays out regularly in the Colchagua Valley. Throughout the growing season, the Valley, which stretches 75 miles from the base of the Andes to the shores of the Pacific, about 100 miles south of Santiago, is blessed with consistently sunny days offset by refreshingly cool and crisp nights. By the time the harvest begins in March, Colchagua’s roughly 85,000 acres of
