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Wine region · Chile

Itata Valley

Chile’s oldest wine region, home to old-vine País and Cinsault on granite soils.

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About Itata Valley

Itata was planted in the sixteenth century and was long dismissed as a bulk region. Its dry-farmed, ungrafted old bush vines have since become the focus of Chile’s most interesting small-producer movement.

País — the same variety as Mission in California and Criolla Chica in Argentina — produces light, pale, savoury reds.

Itata Valley is a wine region, not an appellation

No authority delimits this name or attaches rules to it. A country’s major wine division, usually containing appellations or sub-regions beneath it. That does not make it less real or less useful — it means nothing legal follows from it, and you will not generally find it on a label as a controlled designation.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

País

Chile’s oldest variety, from century-old dry-farmed bush vines — pale, savoury and the centre of the country’s small-producer revival.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

País

Serve at 13–15°C (cellar cool).

Try with fillet steak, turkey or bloomy-rind cheese.

Sources

Sources consulted