Catad’Or Wine Awards and the Chilean Wines and Valleys Fair are two important events that will take place within the next few weeks and which shows that this niche is growing by leaps and bounds.
It is evident that wine Chile has been taking more and more importance. In the first four months of 2017, exports recorded 6.2% growth in bottled wine and 5.5% in value over the previous year.
In this context, wine fairs and competitions have been increasing in Chile. One of these wineries is the Catad’Or Wine Awards, which this year will carry version number 22. An important fact is that vineyard registrations have broken all records, and already there are registered more than 580 samples (100 of them are Vineyards from abroad and 480 Chilean samples).
This event will be held at the Hotel Cumbres Vitacura between July 3 and 10 and one of the great attractions of this contest is that for the first time it will open to other countries awarding foreign wineries.
Another novelty is that the category of peasant wines was opened (producers are involved who harvest their own grapes and then sell them to large producers).
The importance of incorporating this category of peasant wines is to evaluate them in their own merit to give value to peasant wine made with fruits and ancestral methods coming from small scale farming located in the coastal dryland of the south and in the extreme north of Chile .This is a way to contribute to the recognition of the wine culture of our country and the continent, contributing to the preservation and national and international dissemination of these wines made many times with patrimonial strains.
For this year’s competition Catad’Or Wine Awards received 41 strains, eleven more than in 2016, which represents the great variety of Chilean wines that are being produced and which are already being commented by international critics.
The judge
This year, the jury is composed of Chilean and foreign experts who will be able to taste and evaluate a great variety of unique wines and spirits, from Chile and abroad.