Matetic Vineyards

The Free Bacchus Story

Chilean wine built its reputation inland, in warm continental valleys. The San Antonio Valley sits close to the Pacific, gets reliable marine fog, and is cool enough that ripening is a genuine question, which is exactly why the wines taste different.

Matetic was among the first to recognise what that coastal influence could do for Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc. Around 150 hectares of hillside are farmed under IMO certified organic and Demeter biodynamic standards, on granitic soils, with the underlying position that the cool climate and the fog are assets to be preserved rather than difficulties to be corrected with chemistry.

The Matetic family emigrated from Croatia to southern Chile in the late nineteenth century and made their living from sheep and dairy for generations before there was any wine.

The EQ Syrah, named for the seismic geology of coastal Chile, has drawn 95 points from Wine Advocate and stands among the most compelling cool-climate Syrahs made outside the northern Rhône and a few Australian regions. The EQ Sauvignon Blanc is equally serious — lean and mineral, structurally more interesting than the warm-climate Chilean Sauvignon that dominates export shelves.

There is a broader suggestion here about where Chilean wine goes next: less competing on established Cabernet ground, more in the coastal valleys where the climate and the farming philosophy happen to reward each other.