We celebrate
140 years
of history
During four days of celebrations
Errázuriz ambassadors and guests
from all over the world gathering
together to celebrate this important anniversary and the opening of the new Don Maximiano Icon Winery.
We celebrate
140 years
of history
During four days of celebrations
Errázuriz ambassadors and guests
from all over the world gathering
together to celebrate this important anniversary and the opening of the new Don Maximiano Icon Winery.
Good evening and thank you once again for joining us at this very important event, the celebration of our 140th Anniversary with the opening of our Don Maximiano Icon Winery in honor to our founder Don Maximiano Errázuriz Valdivieso.
Our history begins with his dream; in 1870 this Chilean visionary dreamed producing a world class wine from our unique Valle de Aconcagua. He had to venture on horseback 100 kilometres North of Santiago, leaving behind all comfort offered by the capital, and planted in this untamed lands the first vineyards. For this purpose he built the water canals and all necessary infrastructures to cultivate these virgin lands, bringing the best vines from Bordeaux. A few years later Don Maximiano´s dream was a reality and Viña Errázuriz was established as one of the most famed premium wineries of Chile.
This dream was continued by my father Alfonso Chadwick Errázuriz, he took control of our family winery back in 1983, and invited me to join in at the very beginning of our modern wine quality revolution. I was very lucky, this was a new beginning! The objective was clear, to put all our energy, efforts and dedication in rebuilding the image and recognition for our Errázuriz wines in Chile, and to successfully project it to the world, obtaining international recognition as a world class producer. Very sadly, my dear father past away 10 years later, back in 1993, leaving me his great legacy with his life example, noble character, talent, generosity and entrepreneurship.
I have tried since to follow his inspiration and vision with consistent and honest work and will to succeed..., the challenges have been huge, but we have been fortunate to always count with a most dedicated and compromised team, giving the best of their capabilities to bring life to our dream. The task has not been easy, we have encountered many adversities, financial crisis that have obliged us to adjust our plans and strategies, two devastating earthquakes back in 1985 and this past February, which have forced us to rebuild our cellars and our infrastructure. The lack of image and recognition to our industry in the world of wine during the early years, and many others challenges.
However, we have faced them with fierce determination to succeed, to support our people and we have found additional strength to continue expanding our vineyards, modernizing our winemaking infrastructure, and expanding our presence to more than 60 countries around the world. The courage and soul of our team has been tested and has flourished overcoming these difficult hurdles.
Each generation has a mission and a challenge, ours has been to rebuild our patrimony stone by stone and to project ourselves with pride to the world.
At Viña Errázuriz we all feel very honoured by having such a wonderful group of international ambassadors and friends, and we want to thank you for your uncommitted support. We also feel proud of being part of this great team, and proud for contributing to elevate our Wines of Chile image and presence in the world through you. Today many world consumers can celebrate with a glass of our Errázuriz wines in their hands and feel nearer to our country. We have been selected the winery of the year in 2008 and 2009 in Chile and England respectively. We have also received the very first award given by the Chilean government to a company for our contribution to elevate our “Chilean Image” worldwide. This is a great award for each and every one of our collaborators, our national and international Viña Errázuriz friends and partners. Today we want to express our deepest thanks to you, Thank you for helping us to make our dream a reality.
We still have many challenges ahead of us. However, I would like to reiterate our compromise to continue ahead with our vision to lead the premium and super premium Chilean wine developments. Wine is our most emblematic Chilean product reaching 1.5 billion consumers per year, our best Ambassador worldwide, expressing our traditions, our heritage, and our innovation, we are confident we will succeed in positioning Chile as a World Class Apellation for the production of World Class Wines gaining additional image and value!
This is a key requirement for the healthy and long term sustainability of Wines of Chile. This is the best contribution we can make to the future of our country to transition to a modern, developed nation, eliminating poverty and enhancing the well being and opportunities for all our country citizens. This is our life commitment and compromise!
Our Don Maximiano Icon Winery represents our dream becoming real..., we dreamed having a unique cellar for our flagship wine Don Maximiano founders Reserve, a place where we would not only have state of the art technology to transform our best grapes into this unique wine, but also a showcase of our soul and identity. The design is such that we only use gravity forces to transport the grapes in the gentlest way, and we incorporated the most advanced engineering techniques to capture geothermal and solar energies to convey our sustainable principles. Wine is art, and we also dreamed showing this cellar with pride to the world, therefore we entrusted its artistic design to one of the very best architect talents of our country. Let me take this opportunity to effusively thank Samuel Claro and his team, as well as Vicente Claro owner of Pitagoras the building company. They did a wonderful job with great dedication and passion! Let me also thank Juan Grimm, the most talented Chilean landscaper, who participated together with Samuel in re-designing our Don Maximiano estate master plan and gardens in a way that we could showcase our historic original bodega built by Don Maximiano back in 1870 alongside with our state of the art Icon winery. We are proud to show our heritage and innovation as a sign of our spirit.
Most importantly I would like to thank God for giving us all the opportunities we’ve had, our Valle de Aconcagua viticulture Paradise with it’s refreshing breezes coming from the Pacific Ocean, its clear skies and generous sun, its pure waters coming down the Aconcagua peak from the melting of the eternal snows at the heart of the Andes mountains to irrigate our vines, its diverse terroirs from granite to rocky and gravel soils. It is a most generous gift which was created millions of years ago. But, it’s only recently that we realized its full potential learning how to grow the best grapes from the Aconcagua Costa cool rolling hills coming inland through to our Don Maximiano estate where we are now, and to transform them into our delicious wines at our new Icon cellar with utmost care and passion.
I would also like to thank my family, my sisters for their confidence in our plans. My wife for her support and utmost dedication to looking after our children, and most particularly thanks to my beloved four daughters accompanying me here today, they have seen me travelling for long months around the world. I offer them my apologies for my absent times and I promise to perhaps travel less in the future... or even better... ask them to join me in my world travels and have fun together...
Finally, I want to thank my mother that is also joining us today, as she would always accompany my father, I remember our first wine trip together back in 1985 at the very beginning of my wine life journey, thanks for all you have given me, life, passion for our land, and for searching excellence without compromise.
I want to take advantage of this occasion to thank all our team at Viña Errázuriz, for their great dedication, efforts and passion in the elaboration of our wines. Most particularly warmest thanks to our design and project teams, led by Jorge Matte, Francisco Baettig, Nick Goldsmith and Jorge Stolzenbach, they dedicated three years of planning and two years of tireless and dedicated work, to finalize this magnificent work of art that we can enjoy today.
Let me also thank our international guests, you are our world ambassadors, thank you so much for being with us today, for believing in us, in our work and our commitment to quality wines. Without your support this project could not have been realized. Rest assured this new phase of development will further strengthen our premium wine strategy and our commitment to showcasing our wines to the world, in the most artistic way. This is just the beginning...!
Let me also thank our Chilean wine colleagues, producers and friends that have joined us today, we all work jointly with a common goal to elevate our Chilean wines image, and its an honor to celebrate today all together!
As expressed by Don Maximiano more than a century ago, be welcome once again, to our best terroir from where we produce our world class wine.
Many thanks, Viva Chile and God bless us!
Eduardo Chadwick at the Gala Opening at the new Don Maximiano Icon Winery.
President
