I am a failure because I visited Santa Rita today and I still don't know why it is called as such. Often the winery is named for a person, but nowhere in the history lessons I received did I hear the name Rita, so I am super confused about its origins. And I did the thing where I wondered it in my head several times throughout the day but never actually asked the question. I had some trouble finding my voice today - sensory overload maybe.
Anyway, Santa Rita is another classic establishment in Chile, one of the oldest wineries. It is huge and commercial but has a beautiful old cellar and a cool museum filled with South American artifacts like pottery, textiles, gold, silver, copper, and stone that were made by native people like the Incas and Mapuches.
I tried the 2 wines pictured and liked them both. The Sauv Blanc, made from their fruit grown in the Casablanca valley near the Pacific ocean (better valley for whites than Maipo) had a really luscious pineapple character and a fresh acidity. The Cab Sauv was like liquid toffee, with firm tannins. It aged for 10 months in American oak, which clearly contributed the rich toffee/butterscotch/chocolate thing going on. I could've drank this wine for dessert.
An interesting thing I learned was that they have different wines for Chilean consumption versus for export. The exported SB uses fruit from a different vineyard; the exported CS was aged in French oak for 14 months. I tried to get the reasoning behind this but I think it may have been lost in translation. In the past, higher quality wine was exported because other markets had more sophisticated palates than Chile. But now that Chile has established itself in the wine industry, the quality levels are intended to be the same, and I think the differences must be due to stylistic preferences. The exact answer remains a mystery like the origins of the name Santa Rita. Marcelo, if you are reading this, help a sister out?
