Viña Vik-torious
I recently had the pleasure of tasting wines of Vina VIK at the Ming Room in Phnom Penh, with the vivacious and perspicacious Caroline Fanet, Export Manager for Europe & SE Asia. 
Vina Vik is one of Chile’s leading wineries, in 2004, Norwegian entrepreneur Alex Vik and his wife Carrie founded Viña Vik with the aim of making the finest wine in all South America. They spent several years mounting what they have termed a ‘scientific’ search for the finest location, one that would enable them to bring this ambitious dream to fruition. The site they eventually chose was at Millahue, known as ‘Lugar de Oro’ (Place of Gold) by the indigenous Mapuche people. The first vines were planted in 2006.
With the guidance of revered Chilean winemaker, Cristián Vallejo (who previously worked at Château Margaux), a thousand acres of vineyard, (predominantly of red Bordeaux varieties) were planted in a range of sites across the Millahue Valley in Chile’s Colchagua. The vineyard is located between numerous ravines, creating a variety of unique, smaller terroirs and individual microclimates. The entire area is cooled by the coastal breezes coming in off the southern Pacific Ocean, across the Atacama trench.
In 2007, an architectural competition was held, resulting in the selection of Smiljan Radic as the principal architect and designer of a brand-new winery. Radic won through with a highly creative and inspirational concept.
Nestled in the valley and surrounded by magnificent mountains, with the immense Andes as a backdrop, the winery was carefully conceived to produce minimal impact on the natural landscape.
The most advanced and innovative technologies were implemented to ensure that, (operationally) the winery would be especially efficient, sustainability was key, whilst still fitting in with its unique design. The winery includes a transparent, stretch-fabric roof, which allows natural light to bathe the winery and minimize the use of artificial lighting. The entrance boasts a striking view of a mirror of water, this water actually flows through the entire space on a gentle slope that provides an additional cooling element.
In 2018, VIK winery developed a barrel program it calls ‘Barroir’, where staves imported from France, are seasoned and coopered on the property, fired and charred with coals of locally grown oak, to impart a regional character and unique complexity. It is hoped that at some point in future, barrels will be coopered from their own, locally grown, Chilean oak.
There is also a unique fermentation program to place further emphasis on regional character. Using only wild, natural yeast, VIK began incorporating indigenous flowers into the must, done to impart their own native yeasts and character into the fermentation. This project commenced in 2022 and is known as the ‘Fleuroir Project’.
Thus far, on the evidence provided, this combination of Terroir, Barroir & Fleuroir is showing outstanding results in the wines.
Set across 4,300 hectares, today VIK is one of South America’s, (if not one of the world’s) most unique and remarkable wineries. A blend of winemaking, architecture, landscape and luxury, the winery places innovation, science and sustainability at the centre of everything it does.
The mission is to make the highest quality wines without disturbing the pristine natural environment. This is emphasized by the fact that most of its 4,300 hectares are preserved as a nature reserve for native flora and fauna.
The property also boasts one of the world’s leading winery hotels, recognized by the prestigious World Travel Awards 2022 in the category “World’s Leading Wine Region Hotel, it sits atop a hill that offers 360-degree panoramic views of the vineyards with the Andes Mountains as a backdrop in the distance.
On Monday night, amongst auspicious company in the private confines of owner B Hims’ private dining space at his famous Ming Room on Monivong Boulevard, I was very pleased to be tasting these legendary wines.
The Tasting
Omega 2021
Cabernet Sauvignon 75%, Carmenere 13%, Syrah 12%.
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
Maturation: 12 months in predominantly new French oak.
Ripe fruit, predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon with classical Chilean, elegance and intensity. The wine exudes class and finesse. Aromatically, there is attractive red currant and ripe forest berry fruits, with notes of mint and vanilla pod. The acidity is lively, the oak spicy and savoury. The Carmenere component adds notes of sour cherry, pan spices, and some minerality to the blend, whilst the Syrah also adds violet, plum and peppercorn elements.
This is a wonderful way to start with a quintessential Chilean Cabernet at its finest. 94/100
A Cabernet Franc 2022
Cabernet Franc 85 %. Cabernet Sauvignon 15 %
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
18 months in French oak barrels
Vibrant and youthful aromas are of blueberry, huckleberry, milk chocolate, vanilla with some dried herbs and oak spices. Whirls of creamy, ripe fruit cascade onto the palate with a lovely juicy core of elegant, sweet fruit. The wine is still young with a vibrant tannin structure and lively minerality.
Milk Chocolate and forest berries, a hint of sherbert, Rocky Road and vanilla pods give way to lively tannins, eucalyptus and vibrant acidity. There is a lovely freshness to the wine at the moment, with good balance and complexity, all it needs is a little more time. 93/100
A Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
Cabernet Sauvignon 85%, Carmenere 15%
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
Maturation: 12 months in French oak barrels
Aromas of sappy oak, sweet fruit, (red berries), crème de cassis, mocha, with some dusty, earthier tones. The palate shows a silky entry, a sweet core of attractive, cool climate fruit, with red berries, black and red currant jam and a hint of red peppers. The wine is still youthful and tight with fine, savoury tannins, a touch of menthol and oak spices on the finish. Elegant and attractive in its youth. 92/100
Milla Cala 2021
Cabernet Sauvignon (68%), Carmenère (16%), Syrah (7%), Merlot (5%) and Cabernet Franc (4%).
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
20 months in new French oak barrels
The name “Milla Cala” is a tribute to the wine’s origins, with “Milla” meaning gold in Mapudungun and “Cala” being the Spanish translation of Vik.
The wine is immediately aromatically complex and attractive, loads up on sappy oak, spices, vanilla pods, and a touch of toasted coconut. There is also menthol characters, some smoke and tobacco leaf, cigar box and red and white currants.
The palate shows an elegant and complex wine, the entry is seductive, creamy, with red and blue berry notes and a sweet, juicy core mid-palate, delightful, like finding the jam in a doughnut. Tannins are savoury and assertive without being aggressive. The wine is still young, but this is very, very good. 96/100
Vik Millahue 2019
Cabernet Sauvignon 77%, Cabernet Franc 23%
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
Maturation for 20 months in new French oak barrels with an additional six months in barrels toasted with Chilean oak fires.
Elegance, aromas of blueberries, and violets, with Kola, cooking spices, chocolate, tobacco leaf and coffee grinds. The wine positively glides onto the palate. It has astonishing depth with grace and poise. There is a juicy sweet core of red and black currents, Firm, fine tannins and exceptional length on the palate. The wine is youthful, with plenty of leafy notes, spices and earthy characters, it will only get better but is still very attractive. 97/100
Vik Millahue 2021
Cabernet Sauvignon 23%, Cabernet Franc 77%.
Millahue, Cachapoal Valley
Ninety percent of this wine was aged for twenty months in French oak barrels and for a further six months in Sylvain stave, ‘Barroir’ barrels. The remaining ten percent of the wine was aged in amphorae.
Aromas of coffee grinds, graphite, tobacco, pastry dough, oak spices, with a whiff of sage and other garden herbs. Fruit is dense, the wine whirls onto the palate a creamy ballet of blackberries, currants, plums and mint. There are also earthier road dust and bramble notes, mocha and vanilla. The wine has elegance, there is a sweet spot mid-palate then the tannins reach up and grab you, drying, dusty and with a touch of peppermint. The wine is wonderfully complex, very elegant yet with all the depth and intensity you would want or need. A great wine, still many years before hitting its best. 98/100
Coda
There is a definite ‘house-style’ here, all of the wines, although made from different blends of the same varieties, with different terroirs and micro-climates, and different maturation regimes all have an elegance, oak signature, flavour and structural profile that says both Chile and Vina Vik. They are elegant, graceful wines with plenty of oak spice and menthol/mint/eucalyptus notes, that signature core of sweet, bright fruit and the wonderful creamy seductive entry onto the palate. If the goal all along has been to make the very best wine(s) in Chile, Vin Vik is definitely now in the conversation.
