Planting new vines of Chile’s oldest variety.
País, aka Listán Prieto, is the oldest vine not only in Chile, but in the Americas. One of the first Vitis vinifera varieties to be brought by the Spanish, it spread across the continents of North and South America throughout the 1500s and was the variety that gave birth to the incipient wine industries.
It was Chile’s most-planted variety until the late 1800s, and although plantings have dwindled to around 10,000 hectares today there is a renewed interest in the variety. In the past few years we’ve seen a flourishing of juicy, fresh red wines made from old vines in southern Chile. But the País revival is also resulting in fresh aromatic white wines.
The Aromo Winery decided to revisit the Pais grape and now produces both a red and white Pais.
País is very resistant to disease and drought, making the use of Pais a common-sense approach as conditions become drier.
Aromo are confident that País is a variety that reflects the past of Chile.They have been delving into the DNA of País and could this ancient grape variety also be the future?