Maquis vineyards unique location between two rivers

Chilean Cabernet Franc is the Red Wine You Need Right Now

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If more people were aware that Cabernet Franc is a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon (Sauvignon Blanc is the other one), it might get the respect it deserves.

Cabernet Franc tends to be a bit more reserved than its offspring. Whereas Cabernet Sauvignon is most often bold, dark and richly fruited, Cabernet Franc is lighter and adds a savory, aromatic element to its bright red fruit.

France, of course, is its birthplace, and it has thrived in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux for centuries. Cabernet Franc can achieve stratospheric heights of greatness in its homeland, as it is the main grape in the legendary Chateau Cheval Blanc, which releases each year at several hundreds of dollars per bottle.

Cabernet Franc doesn’t like extreme heat, which is why it has rapidly found a home in many of Chile’s cooler microclimates. Several years ago the winemaker of the globally exported producer Viña Santa Rita remarked, “I believe the future for Chile is Cabernet Franc.”

As far as we’re concerned at GVI Wines, the future of Chilean wine has arrived. We’re incredibly fortunate to carry the wines of Viña Maquis and its sister property Calcu, two of Chile’s most prominent Cabernet Franc specialists.

Viña Maquis’s estate vineyards in the Colchagua Valley are bordered by two rivers that together funnel coastal breezes inland. Their Cabernet Franc vines occupy the coolest site on the estate, and the two wines that come from them share a remarkable freshness and vibrancy of fruit.

The best introduction to their Cabernet Franc is the bottling from their younger vines, which retails for $20. Calcu’s is also a worthy foray into the category, with its 90-point score from Robert Parker to boot.

Then there is the Maquis “Franco” Cabernet Franc, which many are already calling a Chilean — and even a New World — icon. It is a bolder and age-worthy style, but it retains all of Cabernet Franc’s most sought-after characteristics. If you’re serious about Cabernet Franc, this wine is a must.

As good as these wines are today, they will only get better as producers gain better understandings of their vineyards. That is a future for Chilean wine we can’t wait to experience.

Ricardo Santos

Forget World Malbec Day. Let’s Make It World Malbec Month

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Argentina saved Malbec, and that’s worth more than a day of celebration. It’s hard to image the U.S. wine market without it.

Malbec, as we know, is indigenous to France, where it was widely grown in Bordeaux until a particularly brutal winter in 1956 killed off a majority of the vines. Malbec had never been particularly easy to work with in Bordeaux, as it was susceptible to a variety of ailments such as coulure, which is a failure of the grape cluster to fully develop during a chilly or rainy spring. More reliable grape varieties were planted in its place.

Malbec is still grown under the name Cot in the southwestern French region of Cahors, but production isn’t large enough for it to leave a global impression.

How did Malbec make it to Argentina? We know that in the mid-nineteenth century the seventh president of Argentina, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, instructed a French agronomist named Michel Pouget to bring grapevine cuttings to Argentina from France. Among those cuttings was Malbec, which ended up thriving in the climate and soils of Mendoza, now the epicenter of the wine industry.

Malbec now represents 38.6% of the total red varieties and 22.4% of the total cultivated area in Argentina.

April 17 is World Malbec Day, because on that day in 1853, an initiative was approved to adopt the French appellation system and continue to plant international grape varieties in an attempt to bolster the reputation of the Argentine wine industry.

Today, GVI Wines is proud to offer the wines of Ricardo Santos, a pioneering producer of age-worthy Malbec who first presented the wine to the American market. Another GVI Wines producer, Aniello, crafts a fresher style of Malbec from the rugged extremes of Argentina’s Patagonia region. We’re also honored and thrilled to feature Funckenhausen Vineyards, a German-Argentine family property that produces some of the most approachable, fruit-forward Malbec we’ve ever tasted.

So raise a glass of your favorite Malbec and celebrate the meteoric rise of a wine that was almost lost forever.