Viña Valdivieso’s history dates back to 1879, when Don Alberto Valdivieso founded Champagne Valdivieso S.A., the first sparkling wine house in Chile and South America. Since then, Valdivieso has been the most prominent sparkling wine brand in Chile, holding more than a 40% market share and the distinction of being one of Chile’s most prestigious brands.
In the early 1980s, based on the reputation and experience achieved throughout the production of sparkling wines – and complemented with a new strive and a vigorous entrepreneurial vision – Viña Valdivieso shifted her focus into the production of still wines. In its earliest stage, Viña took advantage of international opportunities and as a result of the existing challenges in the market, all the produced Viña Valdivieso still wines were exported. It wasn’t long before Viña Valdivieso’s creations were recognized for their excellence, and she obtained outstanding results in terms of awards, consumer preference and brand development. Among a handful of important awards, Valdivieso is also one of the top 20 Chilean wine exporters and a leading sparkling wine exporter to Asia. Today, after international success, Viña Valdivieso has once again shifted her focus, this time to the domestic market.
Viña Valdivieso is the result of a project which aimed to produce the finest wines with the highest quality standards. The project is supported on two strong principles: a constant quest for excellence, and the aim of producing different and attractive wines through a careful selection of different grape varieties and the bests terroirs for each variety. By using the best grape varieties, Viña Valdivieso has developed a broad number of wines within each of the ranges, leading to an unusually consistent high quality for such a broad group of different wine varieties and styles.
For Viña Valdivieso, wine-making begins in the vineyards, with the goal to cultivate the best possible grapes for the wines. To accomplish this, the most rigorous integrated vineyard management program is applied. Grapes grown in different Chilean appellations are received in the winery. The different grape origins allows Viña Valdivieso to capture the distinct seal of each grape region, and by picking the best terroir for each one of the regions, the best of every grape variety is obtained. Additionally, this provides a wide scope of flavors and tastes to meet different consumers’ preferences.
In the cellar, Viña Valdivieso’s work is to reveal the quality of the grapes in the wines. This requires making appropriate use of the best techniques paired with the most efficient technologies. Therefore, Viña Valdivieso uses the state-of-the-art technology, as is required to produce top quality wines. The winery also has a large barrel cellar to allow proper aging of our top range wines. Overall, the latest technology is thoughtfully applied in every step, thus allowing Viña Valdivieso to ferment, stabilize, control, age, and bottle our wines according to the highest standards.
Nevertheless, having the technology is not an objective by itself; it is a tool to capture the quality of the grapes in the wines, and making good wines does not only imply having technology, but also knowing how to use it. For this reason, Viña Valdivieso integrates the best technology with techniques and tradition according to the requirements and conditions needed to obtain the best in each of their wines.
Today, the results are several wine ranges offering great value at different price levels. Among them – and leading wine image – is our signature range, Caballo Loco, lead by the numbered original edition from 1994 with Caballo Loco n°1, adding in 2010 another 4 reds and 2 sparkling wines in the Caballo Loco Grand Cru series.
Caballo Loco is today an Icon wine of the winery, presenting the essence of blending, showing the real art of crafting fine wines.
To find out more about Viña Valdivieso and their range of wines, visit their website.
In the video below, Viña Valdivieso’s winemaker tells us about the winemaking process and talks about the different varieties in Viña Valdivieso’s range.