Style Edit: Concha y Toro unveils a precious new wine collection, Jewels of the New World, pairing its fine wines with gemstones according to their characteristics

Jun 11 , 2024

Concha y Toro’s José David González and Isabel Mitarakis Guilisasti. Photos: Handout

When it comes to wine, Asia has long been a region of the world with a taste for the finer things in life. Compared to the often more staid wine-drinking cultures of the Western world, preferences in Asia tend to skew far more towards the higher end of the market, with quality prioritised over volume.

Hong Kong artist and TVB actor Joel Chan, mainland China wine influencer Terry Xu, and Isabel Mitarakis Guilisasti, winemaker of Concha y Toro’s luxury brand division

There’s also an open-minded willingness to try something new, along with far less misplaced snobbery about the New World – regions that for several decades now have proven themselves fully capable of making fine wines that can match anything Europe has to offer. For the perfect example of that, look no further than the numerous prestige wines owned by the winemaker with the second largest vineyard area in the world – Chile’s Concha y Toro. Now, with the company’s new Jewels of the New World concept, those wines are available in an accessible format that’s comprehensible to everyone, with each of them paired with a precious stone that match its characteristics. The concept was launched in the Greater China region at the end of May, during a tasting event in Hong Kong, where professional tasters guided guests through various offerings from the brand. The tasting was followed by a sit-down dinner in the evening.

Most associated with its home nation, Concha y Toro has 12,000 hectares of vineyards that also cover Argentina and the United States. The company was established back in 1883 – New World winemaking isn’t quite as young as you might expect. It’s Latin America’s largest wine producer, selling an incredible 30 million-plus cases a year, but it’s also home to a stellar line-up of wines at the very top end of the market.

Concha y Toro’s Jewels of the New World wines at the brand’s recent event

“We’re a winery with a lot of heritage, offering excellent-value wines at every price point,” says the company’s corporate export director, Asia, José David González L.

The numerous fine wine brands the company owns have long had a powerful presence in Asia, and the region now accounts for more than 40 per cent of its ultra-premium wine sales. However, in the past they were only sold as separate names – they have never been presented as a single entity and marketed together like this before. Gems were chosen as the unifying theme because that’s exactly what these wines are: extremely precious rarities that should be treasured.

“Gems have scarcity,” says Isabel Mitarakis Guilisasti, winemaker of Concha y Toro’s luxury brand division. “With this kind of wine, we also have scarcity. The gems all come from the Americas. We wanted to match them in terms of the attributes of the gems and the characteristics of the wines. For example, Amelia [chardonnay] is paired with lapis lazuli, which comes from the same valley [Chile’s Limarí Valley].”

Three of Concha y Toro’s Jewels of the New World wines, including the Amelia chardonnay, at the front

Perhaps the most iconic wine owned by Concha y Toro is the only one not included in Jewels of the New World. But then including a wine as famous as Don Melchor – a bold, oaky, complex beast long considered Chile’s leading cabernet sauvignon – could threaten to overshadow the other wines in the collection, and that would be a crying shame. Coming from a dazzling range of coveted terroir, those wines exhibit a remarkable diversity of characteristics.

There’s Trivento Eolo from Argentina, paired with topaz, where ancient malbec vines make wines with abundant fruit and a complex structure. From California, there’s Alea Fina, a classic refined Napa cabernet, with alexandrite as its stone; and the wines of Bonterra Biodynamics, represented by emerald, from a collection of extraordinary vineyards nestled in the mountains of northern California’s Mendocino County.

Guests recently had the privilege of tasting Concha y Toro’s wines at a Hong Kong event

Chile provides six other wines, including the iconic Amelia chardonnay. “We promote it as Chilean Burgundy: every time we have a tasting, people cannot believe this is from Chile,” says González. There’s Carmín de Peumo, one of the world’s finest carménères, paired with rhodochrosite; Concha y Toro Master Edition, a satisfyingly fruity, smoky expression of cabernet, represented by citrine, or yellow quartz; Gravas, making cabernets and syrahs on a coveted plot that exploits the gravelly terrain of the Maipo Valley, and associated here with aquamarine; Marques de Casa Concha Heritage, a Bordeaux blend from the same terroir as Don Melchor that’s twinned with brown quartz; and Terrunyo, with a cabernet and a carménère from Rapel Valley, whose stone is opal.

Musicians entertaining guests at Concha y Toro’s recent dinner in Hong Kong

For Hong Kong’s fine wine lovers, the collection presents wonderful pairing opportunities. Pairing wines with Cantonese food is a notoriously tricky business, given the symphony of flavours presented at a typical Cantonese table. Such is the diversity of the Jewels of the New World range, though, that a line-up of bottles from the collection should be a match for any set of flavour profiles. As González puts it, “We have wines that pair perfectly with everything.”

Style Edit

Latin America’s leading wine producer, Concha y Toro, chose to launch its Jewels of the New World concept in this part of the globe, with Asian clients key at the higher end of the market
The collection sees precious wines matched to gems in line with their attributes – for example, Amelia chardonnay is paired with lapis lazuli, both originating in Chile’s Limarí Valley