When Francisco Baettig, the chief winemaker and technical director of Chile’s Viña Errázuriz paid a visit to Toronto’s Oretta restaurant on Thursday, Jan. 24, the special guest of importer Dandurand Wines is justifiably proud of the winery’s four Icons: its flagship Cabernet Sauvignon-based Don Maximiano Founder’s Reserve ($90), its Kai Carmenere ($150), La Cumbre, a 100% Syrah ($90) and the new Villa Don Maximiano red blend.

The breadth of quality produced by Baettig and company is evidenced by the Errázuriz’s 2017 award from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocateas Best Chilean Winery. Baettig himself collected honours as 2018 Winemaker of the Year from renowned wine critic Tim Atkin, while Decantermagazine selected winery president Eduardo Chadwick as its Man of the Year.

“Eduardo Chadwick is a man on a mission. His self-appointed task? To prove that Chile produces fine wines to rival the best in the world,” writes Decanter’s Peter Richards. It’s something Chile has been trying to do a lot in recent years—not so much shake its reputation as a source of great value wines, but to educate the public that the high-end stuff they are producing deserves a lot more attention.

Baettig has been front and centre in that evolution. His 2014 Viñedo Chadwick and 2015 Seña red blends both received 100 points from wine critic James Suckling (more on that assessment in a future post), making Baettig the first Chilean winemaker to ever earn a perfect score. Educated in Bordeaux, France, he has spent years refining the wines at Errazuriz, trying to gradually pull back the meaty ripe fruit and bold nature of the grapes that Chile grows seemingly without effort, in favour of greater sophistication.

“In the last 15-20 years we’ve been trying to put Chile on a higher level and to show that we have the very good terroirs and the knowledge and the aged vines to produce serious wines with a sense of origin,” and with a style “that is more European,” he told me last week

That made way for their Las Pizarras project, which involved years of combing through the winery’s Aconcagua vineyards with the help of a French geologist to identify the optimum parcels of land to produce the finest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. (Errázuriz’s 2017 Las Pizarras Chardonnay, at 98 points, was recently identified by Robert Parker as the best wine in all of Chile, and the country’s greatest Chardonnay ever.)

I’ll have more to write in the near future on the big guns of Errazuriz’s stable (pictured left), but for all the excitement about the winery’s premium creations, I was reminded once again last Thursday that Chilean winemakers continue to churn out tremendous values in their sleep. Many at the event raved about the 2018 Aconcagua Costa Sauvignon Blanc ($19.95), a reserved, well-balanced, French-styled achievement oozing in stony minerality.But my highlight was the 2017 Aconcagua Alto Carmenère. Forget the assist of the perfect food pairing provided by Oretta restaurant—a porchetta slider with rapini, preserved chili and fennel seed mayonnaise. This was a silky, complex and beautifully structured version of Chile’s signature red grape, teeming in a slightly overripe reduction of black cherries and strawberries, with a splash of espresso and dark chocolate, a hint of menthol and a lengthy, satisfying finish. A rock-solid 90+ for just $21.95.

Great wines are popping up left and right in Chile, but the value-conscious consumers need not fret.