Chef Wise

Chilean wine is a New World wine region dating back to the 16th century when the Spanish conquistadors colonized the region. In recent years the number of wineries has grown from 12 in 1995 to over 70 in 2005. And now Chile is now the fifth largest exporter of wines in the world, and the ninth largest producer. It is said to be midway between that of California and France as far as the climate goes and has had an influx of investment in wine production. And now have a number of international awards and a very growing reputation for quality wines. Now what is good about the area is its geography, and the way it affects the wine, or not as the case might be. With the Pacific Ocean to the west, Andes Mountain to the east , Atacama Desert to the north and Antarctica to the south it is relatively isolated from other parts of the world . It is a long, narrow country, and its vineyards fall in a 800 mile stretch of land from Atacama Region to the Bio-Bio Region in the south. The clim...

Argentina is one of the most important wine regions of South America and also until recently one of the least known and not fully exploited. Now there are a lot of reasons for this and to understand them you have to look back at the history to understand the present. It is hard to believe now that in the 1920s Argentina was the 8 th richest nation in the world. But during the economic depression that gripped the world the country slipped in to a steep decline, florin investment dried up, exports dropped and the rich landowners moved capital out of the country. A growing unrest from the poor and working classes lead to a populist rise of government of General Juan Domingo Peron.  He was influenced by his wife Eva and for a while turned the fortunes of the country around. In 1943 he came to power promising rapid industrialization, better working conditions and organised state controlled unions.  Now most of this was very popular with the poor but not so much wit...