After the quiet harvest of 1999 which did not even fill up the winery, the 2000 vintage was a crazy one for receiving fruit. Healthy yields together with new plantings coming into production meant lots of grapes to pick, crush and ferment. I spent much of the harvest on the cellular phone trying to coordinate grape reception at Viña Errázuriz.

It was a strange year for weather. The growing season started off with a cool, moist spring followed by a late spring frost that hit the Casablanca Valley on the 6th of December. Then we had an unusual rain on the 12th of February. The Rapel and Curicó valleys received rainfall with 30mm, followed by Casablanca (25 mm) and Maipo (15mm); the Aconcagua Valley was virtually unaffected reflecting one of its climatic particularities that makes it so unique for grape growing. The rain in Curicó coincided exactly with the ripening of our Sauvignon Blanc. As soon as we could get back into the vineyards, we undertook selective picking for clean fruit, leaving any botrytis-infected bunches on the vine. The weather following the rain was bright and sunny, and the conditions remained ideal for ripening until the middle of April. Even so the cool spring set back the vines considerably, and late ripening was prevalent through Chile. On April 13th another storm brought rain all over Chile. The majority of the Aconcagua fruit had been harvested before, but in the Maipo Valley, the storm delayed the harvesting of the Cabernet Sauvignon, which was still ripening. The long harvest finally came to a close on the 17th of May, a full two weeks later than normal.

Given the high fruit set and unusual weather conditions, vineyard management was crucial this vintage. The vineyards had high vigour due to plentiful rainfall during the previous winter, as well as late spring rain showers this growing season which kept the soil profile moist. Canopy management started early as we removed crowded shoots to distribute the clusters better on the vine and allow good light penetration for the induction affecting next harvest. The shoots often had three clusters, which gave us an early indication that this would be a big crop; thinning the shoots thus served to reduce yields. Because of the wet cloudy spring conditions, intensive leaf stripping was also essential to improve air circulation for the prevention of botrytis and to get more light into the cluster zone for ripening.

As for the wines, the 2000 vintage has produced some striking results. In Casablanca, our new clones of Sauvignon Blanc are starting to produce wines with more nerve and more grassy melon aromas. The Chardonnay lots are bright wines with apple, pear, citrus and tropical flavours. We decided to make higher percentage of Wild Ferment Chardonnay this year to give us more options for the final blends. Most of the lots are still bubbling away in barrel (six weeks later). I can only cross my fingers and hope that most of them will finish. These lots display rich yeast characters, with notes of butter, sweet onion and crusty bread. We also decided to use native yeast on our Casablanca Pinot Noir to gain more complexity from the young vineyards, These lots are very spicy with fruit flavours.

The sugar accumulation of the El Descanso Merlot was early this year, but we had to wait for the flavour profile to develop. The wines exhibit delicious jammy berry notes.

Here in Aconcagua Valley, I am very excited about the consistent quality of the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon lots, which have more Bing cherry flavours than I remember in previous vintages, together with and elegant, rich mouth feel. I don´t think I´ve ever had so much wine of this quality in the winery, so the blending sessions will be especially fun.

It was a difficult year for Syrah because of the slow ripening. To ensure quality, we did a lot of thinning well into the ripening period. Our efforts paid off: the new wines are showing vibrant fruit flavours ranging from blackberry to black pepper. Aconcagua Carmenere was also difficult to ripen in 2000 because of high vigour and good crop level for the first time in several years. We did intensive leaf pulling to open up the canopies and get more direct sun to the fruit, and we waited until May to pick. The resulting wines are rich with red pepper, soy sauce and dark roast coffee characters.

Despite the challenges that the vintage presented, I am very excited about the results. I believe that all our vineyard work during the growing and ripening seasons will show in the quality of the wines. Overall I rate this vintage as a wild ride which should produce wines of exceptional personality.