This past November, I was invited to a lunch and wine tasting of wines from Ventisquero at the Modern in midtown NYC. The tasting was the Monday after the New York City Marathon and I had just met an Italian friend who ran and was walking around with her medal as many do. The whole city seemed excited and I was filled with anticipation to try wines from this famed Chilean winery with a commitment to sustainability.

Ventisquero is quite large as are many Chilean wineries. They have vineyards in various parts of Chile. We started our tasting with wines from the winery located in a fascinating area near the Atacama Desert. In 2008, Viña Ventisquero planted its first vines in the Huasco Valley right in the midst of the Atacama Desert.  I visited Atacama that very next year in 2009. It was lunar like in terms of the sands and what seemed like a beautiful but desolte place. It was hard to picture how vines grew there but the estate has provided Ventisquero with amazing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir which tasted under the brand name of Tara. We were offered a glass of the Chardonnay as soon as we entered the room. It was racy and filled with mineral notes, great acidity and structure. It had lots of white fruit and floral notes as well. I loved it. According to notes on their website, “The Pacific Ocean has a major influence on the vineyard, producing morning fog, known locally as the “Camanchaca,” and strong winds, which cool the vines, making this a desert with cool climate conditions. ”

I spoke with their head winemaker for a bit during the tasting. He told me that the soils have lots of chalk and lime and that he very much liked the salinity in the wine. It was actually almost salty which is a quality I like in some wines. Felipe Tosso has been with the winery since 2000. He seemed pleased with what the Chardonnay offered. They are the only company with a winery in this part of Chile. We also tried the Pinot Noir from the same region. I enjoyed it and also found this same touch of salinity and minerality which is rare in a red wine but something I appreciate it as it shows the terroir so clearly where the grapes are grown.

We were also lucky enough to try other wines from different Ventisquero vineyards. We tried three red wines of note, Enclave, Vertice, and Obliqua. The first was a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend from Maipo., an area renowned for its Cabernet Sauvignon. This Bordeaux style blend contained Cabernet Sauvignon 89% • Petit Verdot 4% • Carménère 4% • Cabernet Franc 3%. A big bold red, it paired beautifully with the meal we were served and was a wine that could age for a long time. It reminded me of some of other wines I have had from this winery which are made under a different label called Grey which I wrote about in this post. Vertice was instead a blend of Carmenere and Syrah.from their Colchagua Valley vineyards called Viñedo La Robleria. It had great black fruit and pepper as I would have imagined and again was a wine that can age and needed food to support its structure and weight. The third wine we tried was Obliqua which was 94% Carmenere with a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. It was from a high elevation part of their vineyard in Colchaqua and was a racy, mineral driven wine with great verve and beautiful black fruit, spice, and teritary aromas and flavors. I was excited by this mountain Carmenere. I have always loved Carmenere but I don’t often drink them. Tasting Obliqua I was reminded of that love and in 2024 will seek them out again. Here’s a post on my trip many years ago to the Colchaqua Valley around this time of year. I hope to make it back to Chile someday and to actually visit the Ventisquero wineries in person but for now, that lunch will have to do. It was one of the highlights of my 2023 tastings.