Presenter: Murray Norton (MN)

Guest: Francisco Baettig (FB)

MN: Hello and welcome to today's web chat. It's very good of you to join us because we are talking about wines and we have got plenty of them in front of us, Chilean wines to be precise. I'm joined by head wine maker for one of the most popular brands that you'll find in Chile, and Francisco has joined us here, Fransisco Baettig thank you very much for joining us.

Fransisco welcome, good of you to join us. We have an array of wines in front of us. Before we get down to that, there's this whole thing about New World and Old World Wines.

FB: Yes

MN: And we think of Old World Wines I guess as the mother country France and some of the European countries that were producing wines for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and yet when we talk of Chile as a New World Wine, I think well maybe the last ten or fifteen years, but it's been going back a lot further than that.

FB: Yes, well New World in terms of exporting maybe and becoming known in Europe, but we've been producing wine since the sixteenth century. So, in eighteenth century we started importing French varieties.

MN: When you say sixteenth century I'm assuming that's when the Spanish came across to South America?

FB: Yes, they brought in some Spanish varieties but then they were replaced in eighteenth century by French varieties.

MN: So the Spanish and the French influence has always been there, and from that Spanish and French influence that we've had we then move straight away into wines that, are there any Chilean wines that are of a grape variety that has grown up in Chile of itself?

FB: No. They were all from overseas from France or Spain and now you will find even Italian varieties, but we didn't really have varieties of our own.

MN: Why is it that the New World Wines are so popular? What is it that makes New World Wines such a thing that everyone wants to buy?

FB: I think it is their approachability. The wine is made for either having with food or not, with a lot of fruit intensity, sweet tanning in the case of the red, round, easy to drink, and the other thing I would say is they are reliable wines in terms of quality.

MN: Well hopefully that answers Helen's question. Thank you Helen for that. We've been talking about New World and Old World Wines, and just getting ourselves if you like, ready to sample some of these that we've got in front of us. I'm very much looking forward, and it's a tough job somebody has to do it. In New World wines I suspect Sauvignon Blanc is one of those wines that people, particularly in the United Kingdom love to have.

FB: Yes well, Chile is best known for its red but we've been improving a lot and working a lot in finding valleys, cool areas to produce. If you compare Sauvignon from the recent years, what we were producing before, it's a big, big difference. So, we're having very good stuff now.

MN: We've got a question actually from Julie who says she prefers Chilean Chardonnay to Sauvignon Blanc. Chile is producing Chardonnay. In fact I know you produce a wonderful Chardonnay yourselves.

FB: We do yes. Those are the main two varieties, Chilean white varieties I mean; Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

MN: So Chilean Chardonnay is there as well. Oaky flavour to the Chardonnay?

FB: In general, but we are developing lines that are un-oaked Chardonnay with a great success. We send it mainly here to England and it's been a great, great success. People is looking for fruit and not only oak.

MN: Ok, so that's something perhaps for the future in your production line?

FB: It is something that we're already doing with our Chardonnay.

MN: Well thank you Julie for that question. Chardonnay obviously popular, oaked and un-oaked, and of course the Sauvignon Blanc. You mentioned there finding cool valleys in order to produce the Sauvignon Blanc

FB: Yes.

MN: You need a different climate to that for the red wines?

FB: Yes. In general white wines you need a slightly cooler areas and the most famous are in Chile's Casablanca Valley from this two wines comes from, and also Pinot Noir needs a cooler area, and red is more like a warm place to put because you have to get all the ripeness in tannings.

MN: Ok, so different wines, different parts of the valley, different areas.

FB: Yes

MN: Lets just talk about the geography of Chile for a moment. It's very long and thin isn't it? Does that present its own challenges?

FB: Well yes, it's the skinny country; from north to south its 4,000km, very long and wide, the average wide is only 150. So you can really go the beach and to the mountains in a couple of hours, but the wine region is in the central part of Chile, and in there we have been discovering and finding new places, like cooler or hotter, adapted to different varieties.

MN: So that's the geography if you like of Chile, but what about the temperature, because I get this image that Chile is just one of these wonderful places with a great climate. It depends what you call a great climate of course

FB: Yes well the climate is a great climate for growing grapes. It's true because we have less problems in terms of the seasons and all the rain is happening in the winter so it is much easier to produce, and also environmentally it is more friendly because we have less treatments, chemical treatments.

MN: Ok, so you don't have to rely so much on chemical treatments

FB: Much less than other countries, yes.

MN: We've got a question about organic wine that's come up from Daniella. Is it possible to buy organic wine from Chile?

FB: Yes. In fact at Errazuriz we produce an organic wine, it's a Cabernet. The first production was an '03 wine, and it's become very successful yes.

MN: There are challenges with organic wine, and one of those of course is you can't spray it with anything, no chemicals. There's a lovely story that I heard, you grow on some of the slopes avocado

FB: Yes

MN: Like we had for lunch today! Isn't there a spider that lives in the avocado that eats the vine weeval?

FB: Yes. One of the main problems I would say in Chile its more like the red mite, what we would call a red mite. It's a natural predator that lives in the avocado, that goes and takes care of

MN: You know that's just helping the farmers

FB: It is. We use it in organic wines.

MN: Well so there you go, organic Chile wines are available. Thank you Julie for your question on that and I guess they're going to become more available as time comes on because people are reaching towards organic foods. It's becoming a larger market.

FB: Yes in Chile you have more and more wineries that are producing organic. Today you will find easily fifteen wineries doing organic wines.

MN: I've waited long enough Fransisco. We've got to try some wine. Can we start off with one of the most popular, this is the Sauvignon Blanc. It's the 2005, it's fresh, it's bright, it's a lovely wine. I'll let you pour out. You're the head wine maker so you know what you're doing here. So what should we be looking for with this wine?

FB: In general, with our Sauvignon, the freshness of the wine. We ferment at very low temperature, very clean juices so we keep all the fruit within the wine, not to lose the fruit, and the intensity is another thing. We take care not to oxidise the wine that's the main thing so you keep the fruit, the intensity, and also since it's produced in a cool valley called Casablanca, we keep the fruit because its cooler, and there's a good acidity so it's a very crispy wine, a very alive wine.

MN: There's one question that comes before we actually sniff the wine and smell the wine, and before we actually taste it, screw top, we're seeing an awful lot of it. At one time in this country with a screw top you would be saying “Oh it's a screw top wine so it can't be that good.” These days screw top wines are very popular. Now I know your company was one of the first to do this.

FB: Yes it's true. We're going to screw cap because we want to get rid of any risk of corked wines and also cork, sometimes it can get dry and you can have oxidized wine, not necessarily flavours of cork, but also oxidized.

MN: So this is keeping the wine clean, it's keeping it fresher than it possibly could be. Rachel that was a question that you sent in, so thank you very much indeed for that. Screw top wines, why screw top? Well there's your reason for it, and obviously the type of screw tops we're now using make a big deal of difference?

FB: Indeed, yes

MN: Ok I'm going to let you lead on this because as a head wine maker for a large wine producing company you know what you're doing with this, so I'm just going to follow you, so swirl it round the glass.

FB: Yes so you have all the aromas that come off. Well usually you look at the colour to see it's not oxidized and it's fresh. This is yellow green so its perfect, and then you go for the nose. A very intense fruit. We look for that. We pick a little bit early so we don't really want like over ripe fruit.

MN: Over ripe fruit would be too sweet wouldn't it? Am I right in saying that?

FB: Too sweet, too heavy and you will lose a lot of acidity, so you will lose a lot of freshness.

MN: So you are looking for crispness, you are looking for freshness. Can I be bold enough to suggest grass cuttings and gooseberries? There we go. Would that be fair?

FB: That's fair, that's perfect, yes.

MN: Well the nose is working, that's a good start. Lets see if the taste buds are working as well. We're making some noise here and I hope you can taste this. If you can't, go out and get some and taste it because that is really crisp isn't it? That's a great flavour to it.

FB: Yes, a live wine.

MN: Tastes wonderful, tastes as good as it smells and as good as it looks. Its very clean; a very clean finish to it. This I am assuming for the UK market is one of the most popular?

FB: This is our biggest lines I would say, commercial lines, together with Merlot. This is very important for us, also Chardonnay.

MN: One thing I learnt very early on about tasting wines is you have a bottle of wine and you taste it and its very nice, and you have dinner, and then it might be a day, two days, a week later before you taste the next bottle of wine so you can't compare the two. Luckily here at the tasting table on webchats we can taste one wine after another. Oh what a difficult job it is, I know. So, it means that we can compare if you like, there is no real comparison as they are different varieties completely, the Sauvignon Blanc that we're trying here, which is the Chilean based from the Casablanca Valley to the Chardonnay, which I know you've got opened as well so I'm going to have one more little taste

FB: Do you want me to pour the Chardonnay?

MN: Please do Fransisco, please do. Whilst we're doing that can I ask a question that came in from somebody a little bit earlier on? Thank you for that question. How on earth do you pronounce the name of the winery because it's a complicated name for the English to get their tongue around

FB: Its true and we are aware of that so we put it in the back of the label so you can tell here how to pronounce it

MN: How would you pronounce it?

FB: Errazuriz

MN: Errazuriz. ‘Rrrr' Tiger!!. That's how we'd say it. Errazuriz is how the wine would be. Now this is the Chardonnay.

FB: This is the Chradonnay

MN: Thank you to Eustacia, and we hope that's how you pronounce your name as well, for asking that question particularly. Now this is going to taste and smell completely different isn't it?

FB: Yes. This wine is well fermented. It means we didn't put any yeast, commercial yeast in the wine. We let the natural yeast to do the work, and with that you usually have more complexity in this wine. Just a little note, less, less clean, not in a bad way but it gives more complexity to the wine.

MN: Ok. Alan had a brilliant question. Thank you Alan for this, and that's, he said when he hears wine experts talking about the aroma they're getting from wine or the taste, they often talk about getting a little bit of petrol or a little bit of tar, or nettle, or grass cuttings as I said. Now that obviously confuses some people, and they say they don't want it to taste of that, they want it to taste of wine, but I suspect it's a description thing isn't it?

FB: Yes, but I try to keep it simple and the important thing is try to just get a few descriptors of each variety and that will make it.

MN: That's enough

FB: I mean so Chardonnay is more fruit, tropical fruit, this could be more citric and then it is the same with all the rest of the varieties so you don't have to get complicated with that.

MN: Ok, well, so here we go to the nose as it would be of this wonderful wine, this Chardonnay. Again, completely different from the Sauvignon Blanc and for anyone who's not compared like with like they really are chalk and cheese almost to roll in some other tastes.

FB: Well this wine we fermented in barrels. That's why you will have all this vanilla side, smoked side from the barrel.

MN: Smokey vanilla would be a good description, and I'm second guessing already that we're going to be looking at almost a lemony, buttery taste

FB: The buttery, you usually will find that in Chardonnay because we do a fermentation called Malolactic Fermentation

MN: Malolactic?

FB: Yeah, it's a bacteria that takes the malic acid into lactic acid and lactic is like milky

MN: Sure, so you get the buttery

FB: Exactly, yeah

MN: So that's the process that gives you the buttery taste. Forgive me if I taste another wine won't you, and making a noise is normal. You get the air in the mouth by tasting it that way, yes?

FB: Yes, it's like reverse tasting. You make air go through.

MN: I didn't think I was going to like that, but I liked that a lot more than I thought I would. That is very buttery, it's very warm. This would go better with food whereas the Sauvignon Blanc would be better just drunk on its own.

FB: Yes. Sauvignon is like an aperitif wine probably or maybe with some seafood, but this is a more structured, more richer wine so it goes well with pasta probably

MN: Whilst we are tasting this and enjoying this Chardonnay immensely, Mrs Scribner has just sent us a question in, thank you very much indeed for that. Why do French still label their wine by region rather than variety? I think the New Worlds are doing very well, are much easier doing it the other way around. So there's this whole argument about whether you label it and the labelling is so important isn't it?

FB: It is. The thing is that the Old World they define a long time ago the appellation, the geographical appellation and what varieties were better adapted to each region. That's why you will have in Bordeaux five varieties that are well adapted to this region.

MN: So they've got too many varieties to stick it on the label, so they do it by region

FB: Exactly, yes, and New World we prefer to put the variety in the label so you know what you're drinking because we're not developed yet the whole concept of appellation, even when we have valleys

MN: Mrs Scribner, thank you very much indeed for your question. We're going to move on to the reds. I just wanted to ask one question about labels before we do so. The label is important as I said before. Obviously a great deal of thought goes into what you put on the label, and your largest market is the UK market

FB: Our biggest market is UK. 50% of Errazuriz production comes to England, and so it is. We just changed the label and we won an award as the best packaging, competing with different wineries around the world.

MN: Congratulations, that's a great award to win just for the label itself. It does say what it is and that's exactly what it should be. Alright, I'm going to remove those glasses out of the way for just a moment. There was a question has just come in and we sort of half way through so it's a good time for Peter's question. Thank you very much Peter. As we move on to the reds the question was you've got these fantastic wines. They're coming from thousands of miles away how on earth, ‘cos they say wines don't travel very well, and these wines have travelled thousands of miles onto the shelves of your supermarket, of your wine shop, and your off licence, wherever it may be, and they taste as good here as they possibly do in Chile. How do you do that? How do you transport them so far and keep the price down?

FB: Well we store the wine in warehouses that have climatised, how do you say?

MN: Climate control?

FB: Yes, yes, and then well the only risk is during the travel, but usually, sometimes we put it in refrigerated containers so there's no big risk.

MN: How long does it take for the wine to get over?

FB: One month.

MN: A month. Can I ask you to put that one to the side there, but not for too long ‘cos I may well re-visit those again. Those are our white wines there. We move on to the reds. Again I notice the screw caps on red wines. That is quite bold. I've seen it on whites before but not on reds.

FB: Yeah, we think the most important thing is to keep fruit, to keep freshness, so with a screw cap you can do that so we are using screw cap for all our variable lines, whites and reds

MN: You've won some awards for some of your red wines as well. Is this one of the award winners?

FB: Yes this wine just won a trophy in the International Wine Challenge here. A trophy is a double gold medal, in Chilean trophy, red trophy, and then the same wine won the Great Value Red Wine of the Year, so it's competing with all other countries. So we're very happy.

MN: So that's another award; label award and another award for this, double gold award for this, as you pour that out, a question in from Barry. Thank you Barry for your question and that is how do you know when you're picking your grape variety, and at what point in that process do you know that that grape is going to be an award winning vintage? I mean you're a wine maker, you're tasting this wine from a very early period so can you say just by the climate and by looking at the grape or do you need to wait until it's fermented properly?

FB: Is hard to tell from the very, very beginning, but we usually take the picking decision by tasting the grape so we really make sure that when we're going to pick the grape its full ripeness. So usually with that you're assuring a very good quality in the wine

MN: First of all thank you very much Barry for your question. So, first of all its taste the grape then its taste it when it comes through, and hopefully from there you've got yourself a vintage. You've been very lucky with the vintages haven't you?

FB: Its been very consistent in quality since '03, '04. '05 was very good too so we're very happy, but some years we can have a little bit more rain or a bit cooler like ‘2000 for instance, but the recent years been great.

MN: Another question about vintage, people are obviously interested in the vintage; Sarah thank you for your question. Are there particular vintages that you should look for in Chilean wine and that we should be searching out for? Are there years that are there, written in the diary that we should be looking out for?

FB: The '03 was very, very good vintage in general. Red wines, excellent red wines in Shiraz, Carmenere, maybe reds better than whites in '03, and '04 was very consistent also in quality, and '05 I would say whites are very, very good.

MN: Alright there you go. There's your question answered Sarah, happy searching for them. We have some in front, let's taste this. It's the Merlot, and Merlot is a wine that we tend to understand. We've seen Merlot from around the world and so again we should be looking for that that always look for. This is 14% and I don't know if that can be picked up at all on the camera but if you twirl that around there the alcohol lines that are coming down the glass on this are, this is a heavy weight wine isn't it?

FB: It is. Well we try to pick always very, very ripe. We don't want any greenness or viciousness in the wine, so that's why since Chilean climate is a bit warm you usually will have a higher alcohol compared with Old World wines, but it gives you also some smoothness that helps, so its not a bad thing.

MN: That's a perfect wine for lamb is my bowl; lamb with some rosemary that would be fantastic. We haven't got the grill on at the moment unfortunately but that tastes very rounded, very soft. It tastes like red wine obviously ‘cos it is red wine, but it tastes of a pretty heavy duty red wine

FB: For us the thing is that you have the fruit but it's not a light wine. You have fairly good volume, some structure to the wine and it's very intense in the nose, good colour, so yes

MN: We like that. Whilst we've got that there let's now try the other one we've got. Now this is another important wine The Blend which I see you've got up the front there. The Blend is a fascinating wine. This again, you're trying to produce a wine that's a little bit more complex? Would that be fair?

FB: That's the idea. I think Chile is known for its variable wines. They are very important for us but I think we have to try also to move into more complex wines, more interesting fun wines, and we have the varieties so we really are looking for more diversity. This is the first vintage of this wine. It was just released and it got a gold medal in Decanter so we're very, very happy.

MN: You're going to need a bigger trophy cabinet to hold all these trophies. Ok let's pour this wine out. It's a lovely design label, but we'll talk about that in just a second. So, I'll let you pour that one out, thank you very much indeed, and one for you as well. Fiona wants to know, I've seen a great variety from Chile called Carmenere, and that's an interesting one to talk about because that's a wine, a grape that I don't hear very much about and I know it only produces a small amount but its quite an important grape in Chile.

FB: It is. For the short story it was a variety that was planted in Bordeaux that they lost with a problem and since it's a variety that needs temperature, lots of ripeness otherwise it's a bit green, they never planted again because Bordeaux it was a bit cool for this variety, but in Chile we carried down there and we didn't know it was Carmenere. We thought it was Merlot in the beginning, and we were picking it a little bit early so in the beginning it was a bit green, not very good, but now we know we have to wait. We pick it in May which is very late and the results are very impressive.

MN: Look out for the Carmenere. Fiona, thank you very much indeed for your question. Back to The Blend. The Blend as it suggests is a blend of wines. What have we got in here? We've got Shiraz

FB: Yes you have Cabernet which is 65%, 20% of Shiraz, 10% of Sangiovese which makes it a unique wine I would say, and 5% Carmenere

MN: This is much more complicated, much more complex. There's much more in there. You can smell an awful lot more

FB: Well here you have 60% new barrel, 70% French and 25 American. So of course you have the oak and it's much complex and very structured wine, rich wine

MN: You've got a lovely, the tannin is that dry after taste that you get from red wine. That's a wonderful taste that you get into that. This is a question that has just come in from Terry, could you indicate some of the best Chilean wines currently available in the UK for special occasions. If the price wasn't the factor, if you weren't saying “Well, I've got to spend under £10” if you were going to impress somebody at a dinner party, you want to take along a Chilean wine, what would you suggest is the one that you would deliver?

FB: The price doesn't matter?

MN: The price doesn't matter

FB: Great

MN: Oh you know that's heaven to a man like you

FB: Well you have now lots of what we call Premium Wines. Errazuriz produced the Don Maximiano. But now you have multiple choices

MN: Ok well thank you very much indeed for that. Lets have a question that's just come in. Eric from Oddbins wants to know, hello, thank you very much indeed, I want to know if you'd be attending next week's Wines of Chile Event here in London? There's a question for you.

FB: Yes. I'm going to give a seminar that Errazuriz give every year. It's the eleventh Errazuriz seminar here in London and then we will be in the Chilean tasting in here

MN: There s a question that comes up, thank you Eric for that, and the answer is yes in the short term, and the other part of your question he wants to know, Eric wants to know is if Chilean wine isn't just a little bit under priced? Do you think it could be moving up in price? There are consumers everywhere going “No, keep it down.”!

FB: Yes of course. Our Chilean price is £3.70 and I think for the quality, we deliver very good quality in that range, and if you think of Australia that it's £4.20, I think we deserve a little bit more money for the quality.

MN: I'm sure you'd say that as a wine maker yourself. Thank you very much indeed for being with us. One final question from James, and knowing as I do that you trained in France as well as out in Chile for many, many years, what's your favourite wine? If you had your choice what would your wine be?

FB: I don't know if I can just choose one, it's very hard. I love the Alsace in the Old World. In the Alsace Rieslings I love the Barrolos from Italy. Probably they're my best favourite, and in the New World I really like the Cabernet from California, and Shiraz from Australia, and well of course what we producing from Chile

MN: As you do produce here the Errazuriz. There is a pronunciation guide on the back which I need more than you do. Fransisco thank you so much indeed for guiding us through these wonderful Chilean wines. Congratulations on the awards that you have already won, and thank you very much indeed for your questions and for joining us today on webchats and we'll see you again soon. From us, “Cheers.”

FB: Cheers