Marvel of marvels - hot from Chile.

Hot from Chile, bottles of Korta Wines' Grosse Merille

The world is truly connected even in the midst of a pandemic. As reported in our post of a few days ago, April 2nd we made the discovery of a grape called Grosse Mérille from a report in 'Decanter.' With little else to do during the Coronavirus lockdown we went to work with the idea of somehow finding a bottle. At that stage we were just along for the ride not believing for a moment that we could land a sample of this wine from our laptop in London. There appeared to be no winemerchants stocking it outside Chile and Chile was a long way away.

Our first idea was to contact the producer, Korta Wines of the comune of Sagrada Familia in Maule of which it is written:


Among the different Chilean valleys, Sagrada Familia Valley (part of Curicó Valley), located in the parallel 35° South and approximately 200 kilometers south of the capital of Chile, Santiago, has a mild Mediterranean climate, with very defined seasons, with hot Summers, mildly cold Winters and the transitional seasons of Spring and Autumn.

Rains concentrate in Winter time, with an average rainfall of 600mm per year and a daily thermical oscillation of 15° Celcius. The valley has good ventilation conditions, with preeminence of cold winds coming from the Pacific Ocean that cool the Spring and Summer evenings.

It is one of the five places in the world, where these perfect conditions are found, allowing the optimal phenological maturity of the grapes.

We didn't expect a reply because the harvest just took place last month so this is the busiest time of year. Also we sent our query as to where we could locate this Grosse Mérille to an info address on the Korta website and we are used to such communications going 'in die Hosen' as the Germans so aptly put it.

The kindly and efficient Francisco Korta

Imagine our surprise as they say when we received an answer from Francisco Korta himself by return. Francisco immediately indicated his willingness not only to send us some Grosse Mérille but also to help edit our post for which we were very grateful.

We were dubious about buying a bottle or two and having them shipped all the way to London. The costs would almost certainly be prohibitive and we really didn't want to put our new friend to any trouble. Nonetheless he was quite insistant and asked for our address. We supplied this hoping to get an estimate for the shipping but a couple of days passed without any news.

We thought that would be the end of the matter and then there was an 08.00 ring at the doorbell and there was a box containing the two bottles.

Marvel of marvels indeed. Gratefully we sent Francisco a message telling him of the safe arrival of the wine and asking again for an invoice.

By return, Francisco wrote  'Don´t worry, this wine is like a son... It´s a gift for you. You must drink it like a whites wines, low temperature.

Alistair Cooper MW's review of Korta's Grosse Merille in Decanter.

As soon as we can try this wine which we expect to be as good as the revue in 'Decanter' we will include it in our next tasting - whenever that will be. It may not be a great time to do anything but we have proved that the world is still interconnected and in the midst of catastrophic disturbance wonders can still happen. They are so much more to be treasured than ever.