Chile

Spanish settlers brought the vine to Chile's Central Valley, probably around 1554.

The country is famously long and thin, some 3,000 miles in length from the Atacama Desert in the North to the glaciers of Patagonia in the South. The main wine regions of Chile are all valleys of rivers running down from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean, transecting the 625 mile Central Valley.

Chile has a Mediterranean climate, its naturally warm temperatures are mitigated by the influence of the cold Humboldt current that runs along the Pacific Coast of the country.

Rainfall in the Central Valley tends to be higher in the south and also in the east, on the slopes of the Andes. The east of the valley tends to have greater summer temperature differences from day to night.

Chile's wine regions are classified by the various rivers that cut across the Central Valley, carrying torrents of melted snow during the growing season.