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What are the ethnic foods that you eat on a normal basis?

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August 14, 2009

Chile Chile  |  Aug 14, 2009
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For arguably hundreds of years, winey snobs have lived and died by French wine.  If it wasn't grown in Burgandy, Bordeaux or Champagne, then it simply was not worth the time.  Even California wine, until relatively recently, was seen as cheap imitations of the French originals.  These standards have been changing, however.  Some California vineyards have now even scored higher points than French ones. 

There is one wine region though, that has made a massive entrance onto the international scene in the last decade or so, and that is Chile.  Wine was introduced into South America in the 16th Century by the Spanish Conquistadors.  In the mid 18th Century, the French varietals were introduced.  Chile was found to be a perfect climate for Merlot, Cabernet, and Camenere;  somewhere right between France and California.  Despite this, Chilean wine never really blossomed until the 1980's when stainless steel fermentation tanks were introduced and oak barrels began to be utilized for aging.  The increased technology coupled with the ideal climate turned Chile from a vintner backwater, known for unimpressive wine consumed locally, to the third largest wine exporter in the world by the turn of the 21st Century.  One key benefit to Chilean wine, is that the phylloxera louse, a constant concern in other wine regions, is completely non-existent in Chile.  The result is that grape vines do not have to be grafted like they do in California and Europe.  Chileans can justly claim their wine as being far more pure.  While wine connoisseurs debate whether this purity can actually be tasted or not, it undeniably proves profitable as grafting can be expensive.

Chilean wineries burgeoned from 12 in 1995 to over 70 in 2005.  In 2004, at the Berlin Wine Tasting 36 European wine experts compared wines from France, Italy, and Chile in a blind taste test.  Both the first place and second place winners were Cabernets from Chile.  In 2005, there were five Chilean wines in the top seven places.  In the Tokyo Wine Tasting of 2006, Chile took home four of the top five rankings.  As Chile's wine expertise continues to expand, it looks poised to take a serious place next to the world's top wine regions, and could one day surpass them for all but the most hardened French wine purist.

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