The Global Life: Tierra del Vino

On a continent known for samba and tango, Chile is the sober exception. But not for long, according to Mario Pablo Silva, managing director of the Casa Silva winery in Chile's Colchagua Valley, whose family's once staid operation is poised to make winemaking more of a fiesta. "By September," Silva gushes, "we plan to offer a high-end hotel with a restaurant, polo games during tastings, Chilean rodeo and horseback riding" beneath the Andes. Casa Silva and many other Chilean wineries are partying because their high-stakes bet--a red-wine grape called Carmenere--is paying off. Brought to South America from France in the 1800s, Carmenere was rediscovered in Chile in the 1990s as a delicious compromise between the robust Cabernet Sauvignon and the softer Merlot--and a chance to market a signature Chilean wine. Casa Silva has already made Carmenere its second grape, behind Cabernet; it accounts for a fifth of Casa Silva's growing exports and reaps international awards for labels like its Los Lingues Carmenere.

Carmenere is just one of the reborn grapes that South Americans are using to make their breakthrough wines--the ones to finally set them apart from French Bordeaux and Spanish Rioja. Malbec, another recently revived red-wine varietal, already represents a quarter of Argentina's wine exports and is hailed as the nation's new vinicultural emblem. "Now we intend to place Argentine wines among the best in the world," says Ernesto Catena, 37, leaping over Malbec casks at his family's Catena Zapata winery in the Mendoza region. Even Uruguay, whose coups until now were usually only military, is seeing its obscure Tannat reds served by U.S. sommeliers like Richard Di Giacomo at Miami's pan-Latin restaurant Cacao. "The real fun of wine is sharing new discoveries," says Di Giacomo. And as Casa Silva's plans show, the designer-grape push is broadening wine tourism for countries like Chile and Argentina, once remote outposts to all but Patagonian penguin watchers but now magnets for vini-vacationers tired of Napa and Burgundy.

New World winemakers have always chafed under Europe's 75% share of the $7 billion global-export market. But Australia, with the help of its Shiraz, managed to overtake France as the No. 2 exporter to the U.S., bested only by Italy. South Americans have also learned a little something about the value of an offbeat grape. Chilean wine exports top $500 million, but they're better known for value than vintage. And so since 1997, the area of Carmenere vines has risen 1,800% in Chile, to more than 15,000 acres and counting. (Terrunyo--the best Carmenere at Chile's largest winery, Vina Concha y Toro--costs about $30 in the U.S. Other highly rated labels, like Terranobles' Gran Reserva or Casa Silva's Los Lingues, can be had for less than $20.)