30 best affordable Chilean wines to try

A top performer in a recent Carmenère panel tasting, this energetic blend (with Syrah) is peppery, vibrant and engaging. There’s a touch of tobacco and it’s just so effortlessly drinkable and elegant.

A wine that stops you in your tracks. It’s different, daring even. The fruit is pure and vibrant but it’s so much more than that – tense, grippy, floral, earthy, vivid, savoury, spicy. It works with all kinds of dishes we throw at it, from dolcelatte risotto to stir-fry. This is smart, classy Pinot Noir, and a bargain at the price. Try it.

A captivating expression of Carignan – and a sign of the truly great things that can and will be achieved with these old vines in Chile. Vivid floral, wild berry scents and a wonderfully poised, dense, moreish flavour profile.

Curicó is far from being Chile’s sexiest wine region, but a recent visit confirmed encouraging results from producers’ hard work. This is a great example – from a high-altitude vineyard in the east, the first vintages were coarse and virulently green, but the 2016 gets spot-on balance: tense, refined, refreshing, with a beautiful herbal lilt and tannic finesse.

I remember visiting this blustery, arid vineyard before it was planted – winemaker Marcelo Papa was excited even then. Limarí is sunny, but while this is a muscular, dark-fruited, effusive style of Pinot, it’s also fine-textured, graceful, grippy and savoury. Think: Chile’s answer to Central Otago.

An unashamedly extrovert wine whose effusive, creamy, ripe-fruited aromas belie the elegant, food-friendly palate profile that follows. It can come across as a blockbuster style, but it’s not: dense, elegantly bittersweet dark fruit and savoury woody spice, together with fresh acidity and fine-grained tannin, render it moreish and fine.

As you’d expect from the deep south, this is a fresher, lighter-bodied take on a classic Chilean Pinot. Tense and grippy, with a lovely sappy intensity in its pale yet insistent way.

This little brother to Herú (wine No2, on previous page) reflects similar characteristics: a focus on freshness, elegance, varietal character and that very particular Pinot Noir tannic grip. It’s earthy, a touch warming on the finish (reflective of the warm vintage) with creamy notes still evident, but it’s wonderfully urgent, tense and food-friendly.

The oak and puppy fat is still in evidence, but underlying is a beautifully poised, elegant, well-grounded Pinot made with sympathetic hands. Brambly fruit flavours mingle with a gently grippy tannic texture and a refreshing, lifted finish.

This one’s a slow burn – you need to give it time in the glass. It’s deliberately made in a mid-weight style (rather than the more bruising Carignans out there). Refreshing, juicy, upbeat, it delivers its dark-fruited Carignan character in a gently rustic, food-friendly way.

Francisco Baettig is a leading light in Chile’s quest for Burgundian levels of precision and elegance in its Pinot Noir. His Pizarras wines are outstanding (but expensive). This is a relative bargain way to gain an insight into the kind of refinement, purity and tension he prizes.

Plummy, smoky, earthy – this is a multi-faceted and rewarding Pinot that shows as well on the dining table as it does on the tasting bench. Complex and lively.

Chilean Pinot Noir is exciting not just because of what it’s starting to achieve at the top end, but also because it can deliver some of the best value in the world. This is a simple but perfectly pitched Pinot, full of moreish summer fruit and herbal notes. It’s refreshing, with a touch of succulence and mint, and an engaging bittersweet twist on the finish. Outstanding value for money

Sourced from the best blocks of hillside Malbec in the Colchagua estate, this is a scented, juicy, elegantly dry Malbec that doesn’t try too hard and is all the more rewarding for it.

A bright, engaging style that offers great value to those partial to a typical Maipo Cab. It works because it’s made in a deliberately fresher style, with notes of red pepper and blackcurrant. Perfect pizza wine.

A perennial favourite whose price has risen over time, but which still delivers excellent bang for your buck. Toasty, dark-fruited and refreshing despite the complexity – this is classic Chilean Pinot at its best.

Vivid, dark, peppery and spicy – this is expressive, edgy cool-climate Syrah, complete with swagger and attitude.

An excellent-value, cherry-scented, dense but refreshing take on old-vine Maule Carignan. Bundles of character but doesn’t lapse into excess: upbeat dark fruit with a nip of tannin and creamy complexity.

The eastern end of the Casablanca Valley is just about warm enough for longer-season varieties made in an elegant style. This Merlot is beautiful proof: fresh, peppery and leafy with a wonderfully elegant mid-weight palate profile and a savoury, fine finish. Food friendly and well judged.

With 20,000 bottles made, this is one of Chile’s most commercially successful old-vine wines. Fresh, pure and attractive, with lovely summer pudding fruit and a tangy finish.

Lots goes on in this glass – but there’s no excess. It’s a pale, upbeat red with hints of woodsmoke and candied strawberries. On the palate it’s juicy, with crunchy fruit, uplifting flavours and commendable vigour. Lovely line and texture. Not the most complex, but a joyful wine.