Over the years I've bought this Chilean chardonnay a number of times, and it's been anything from Macon-yellow and sunny-ripe to cold climate sharp and austere. That's easy to understand if you've visited the winery--it's almost four hours south of Santiago and the wineries that produce most of the wine we think of as Chilean, and therefore less temperate and more subject to vintage variations. It's almost never the same wine two years in a row. So why do I buy it? Because it's generally always a good $10 summer buy, and when they get it right there's almost no competition for the money.
They got it right in 2008. Very pale yellow. Flowers and pears in the nose and apples, pears, bay leaf spice and lemon-lime on the palate. Medium body with no obvious oak; bright and pleasing acidity.