Central Valley, Chile

This region has always been at the heart of Chilean wine production. It is one of the largest and produces the vast majority of all Chilean wine. Covering an area of around 400km, running south of Santiago through the Andes and coastal ranges down to Maule in the south. The northern parts of the central valley is where much of the investment in the 1980s into new wineries and vineyards took place. It is warm, fertile land that is well suited to high-volume production and has played a large role in the success of Chilean wine on the export market. There are some very premium wines grown in the Andean foothills and cooler parts nearer the ocean, but they are not particularly well-known.

Central Valley is split into four sub-regions, and even further into zones within these regions, that generally denote higher quality wines. These are:

• Maipo Valley
• Rapel Valley
• Cachapoal Valley
• Colchagua Valley
• Curico Valley
• Maule Valley