Aristos

Aristos meaning "noble" or "excellent" in Ancient Greek is a project born a few years ago out of three people's common passion for making the finest wines possible: Louis-Michel Liger-Belair of Domaine du Comte Liger Belair, Francois Massoc (award-winning winemaker of Calyptra in Chile) and Pedro Parra (one of only 8 terroir consultants in the world, the other 7 coming from France, who advises the top wineries in Chile.) Terroir is their focus. Their idea - to find the best terroir possible for each grape variety and produce "Grands Vins" from Chile, based on the idea that a "Grand Vin" has to be "drinkable" not only "tastable." That means wines that are fresh, not too warm or alcoholic and not over-oaked.

They have already found two terroirs for two grape varieties, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Both of them hail from the Cachapoal region in Rapel in the Andean foothills, Chardonnay planted at 1100 metres and Cabernet at 900 metres. Only 2 barrels were made of the 2007 Chardonnay, in 2008 250 cases each of the Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon have been made. The wines will be "titled" reflecting the nobility of this project and its resultant wines. Chardonnay will be La Duqueza and the Cabernets will be Barone and El Duque.