Colchagua Valley, south of Santiago in Chile's Central Valley, is warm and fertile with a range of soils from the Andes foothills to the coastal range, well suited to ripening deeply coloured, full-bodied reds. Cabernet Sauvignon is the mainstay, but Colchagua is also where Carmenère — a Bordeaux variety long thought extinct until it was rediscovered growing (misidentified as Merlot) in Chile in the 1990s — has found its best expression.

Key grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Syrah, Malbec