Chilean Wine:
1550’s - winemaking Pais grapes are first cultivated in Chile by missionaries.
1578 – what might have been the first Chilean wine exports are intercepted en route by Sir Francis Drake.
1780’s – Chile begins to export wine in earnest.
1830”s – Naturalist Claudio Gay introduces 30 French varietals to Chile.
1889 – A Chilean wine wins a Grand Prix at a world exhibition in Paris.
1994 – Scientist Jean-Michel Boursiquot discovers that many ‘merlot’ grapes in Chile are actually Carmenere, a Bordeaux grape previously thought to be extinct.
Per Capita wine consumption in liters in 2010:
France – 55 liters
USA – 10 liters
China – 1 liter
Chilean wine volume in liters produced and exported –
1990 398M/43M
2010 – 915M/1,024M (not a typo) This is also after the 2010 earthquake in which an estimated 125M liters were spilled.
