My Unforgettable Wine

There are some wines that stick forever in your memory - not because they are worthy of a 100-point score, but because of the circumstances under which you tasted them.

For me, it was a Chilean wine – Torres Santa Digna Sauvignon Blanc 1983.

In 1979, Torres, the renowned Spanish house, was the first European winery to invest and build in Chile. Miguel Torres made an enormous contribution to the Chilean wine industry by introducing stainless steel tanks for fermentation and Bordeaux barrels for aging. The tradition in Chile, up to that time, was to ferment and age in large vats made from a local wood named rauli (evergreen beech). And all the large wineries had huge washing machines the size of bungalows to recycle their bottles.

My first visit to Chile was in 1985. I was toured around the Maipo Valley wineries and then, on Sunday, March 3rd, I was driven 195 kilometers south of the capital, Santiago, to Curico - to visit the Santa Digna winery.

Miguel Torres himself welcomed me in the house of his vineyard manager on the estate. As we talked, we sipped on a glass of his Sauvignon Blanc.

Suddenly, there was a roaring sound like the approach of an express train, and the walls began to shake.

‘It’s an earthquake,’ said Miguel. ‘We get them all the time here. I’ve been in worse in Japan.’

But the noise got louder, and pictures began to fall off the walls. ‘I think we’d better go outside,’ said my host; and like dedicated wine folk we covered our glass with our hand so that nothing should fall into it.

Outside, the ground heaved under our feet; it was like standing on a waterbed. The vines shook and the tarmac on the road separated and fluttered like a great black ribbon a foot above the ground. I had the feeling that the earth was going to cleave open and swallow us.

We certainly needed that glass of Sauvignon when everything became calm again.

The Spanish word for earthquake is 'terremoto' and this one turned out to be Force 8 on the Richter scale.

It became known as the 1985 Algarrobo earthquake. The epicentre was off the coast of Valparaiso. At least 177 people died and about 2,500 were injured.

The force of the 'quake caused stainless steel to buckle and crush and oak barrels to split open. Wine flowed in the streets. The late Chilean President Pinochet declared a curfew, and anyone found on the streets after dark was in danger of being shot.

I have returned to Chile a couple of times since then; and each time there has been a ‘terremoto’ but none as devastating as the Algarrobo.

And that is why Torres Santa Digna Sauvignon Blanc 1983 is my unforgettable wine.