_____________________________________

THERE’S NO GETTING away from it – Cono Sur is a great name with its pronunciation being so akin to ‘connoisseur’. In Spanish, it means Southern Cone, which is the South American region represented by Chile, Argentina and Uruguay – which isn’t bad either.

Although run totally independently, it is ultimately part of the Concha y Toro empire, South America’s largest wine producer. Its affable chief executive, chief winemaker and leading light, 46-year-old Adolfo Hurtado, has just celebrated 20 years with the company.

Hurtado is married with three sons and a daughter, who has caught the bug and is about to start an agronomy course with a view to following in his footsteps and possibly filling her father’s rather large boots.

FARMING STOCK

So how did the man who crafts Chile’s best-selling Pinot Noir get into winemaking? That’s simple. His family on both sides comes from farming stock, his father farms in the Casablanca valley. He is primarily dairy but, undoubtedly, with a little help from his son, he grows grapes and supplies Cono Sur. On his mother’s side, his grandfather had a farm in Apalta in the Colchagua valley.

Hurtado went to agriculture college in 1988 and, during the five-year course, he noticed the huge uplift in the Chilean wine industry. The course had not been popular but the astute Hurtado saw the opportunity to get ahead of the curve and specialise in winemaking.

He took a job at Viña La Rosa in the Cachapoal region and was fortunate enough to work under the auspices of Ignacio Recabarren (famed for Concha y Toro’s Trio and Terrunyo ranges) and Götz von Goerzdorf.

“Ignacio was all about the passion. Götz was a nice, generous man who knew more about wine in Chile than anyone else. He was generous with his knowledge.”

The German happened also to be technical director at Concha y Toro. So, when the opportunity at the outlying Cono Sur operation arose, Hurtado jumped at it. That was 20 years ago last month (June).

“At that time there was only a winemaker, marketer and a commercial guy. That was it,” says Hurtado.

They were making 70,000 cases and the UK’s number one retailer Tesco’s Wine Club was a major customer. Cono Sur is now the second largest exporter after CyT and, with 430ha under Pinot Noir, it claims to be the largest producer of Pinot in the world. Its leading brands include its entry-level Bicicleta brand, Reserva Especial, 20 Barrels and its flagship Ochia, which retails for approximately £35.

Leaving the rest of the Chilean wine industry to fight it out for share of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carménère, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc et al, Hurtado and his team have focused on the more challenging Pinot Noir, along with aromatic varieties such as Riesling, Viognier, Gewürztraminer and Sauvignon.

“We are the largest producer of Gewürztraminer, Viognier and Riesling in South America,” boasts Hurtado.

But why kick off with what is generally regarded as one of the most difficult grape varieties to cultivate?

“It was first planted in Chile in 1968 at Santa Elisa,” explains Hurtado. “We bought the estate and there was a block of Pinot Noir. We started to work it, develop it. Cono Sur now produces six million bottles of Pinot Noir and we are the largest producer of Pinot in the world.”

TRADING UP

Having scored so many goals already, one wonders what the unassuming Hurtado has left? He says Cono Sur has “three pillars: quality, innovation and sustainability”.

From a broader Chilean perspective, he feels strongly that Chile needs to “trade up” from its burdensome image of making cheap and cheerful wines. Well known master of wine Tim Atkin, a fan of Chilean winemaking, recently remarked at a tutored tasting of some of Argentina’s best wines that top Chilean wines do not go for great prices. Yet Chilean wines, which are just as good, cannot get near the prices for Argentinian icon wines.

This clearly incenses Hurtado. His personal professional ambition is for Cono Sur to be the “Penfolds or Villa Maria of Chile” (the flagship brands of Australia and New Zealand respectively).

BEHIND THE BRAND

So why call your entry-level wine ‘bicicleta’? Hurtado’s response is: “The icon of Cono Sur’s entry-level Pinot Noir is the bicycle and we’ve become recognised for it, but this wasn’t created by me or some clever team of marketers. When we first started Cono Sur, the bicycle was just the way our workers travelled across the vineyards to tend the vines, avoiding unnecessary pollutants and keeping it traditional and with a human touch.

“To this day it’s still the same and the bike now stands to represent not just the winery but also our philosophy of a more natural approach to winemaking. All this aside, I also believe in the phrase ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’,” he says.

And what happens to be the man’s favourite pastime? You guessed it – cycling. Mountain biking to be precise. Every Sunday when he isn’t travelling or making wine he is out on his Scott mountain bike. Indoors, he does spinning classes. To be fair, he also likes running and being on the beach with his family.

Cono Sur or connoisseur – the words are interchangeable for Adolfo Hurtado.

By the way, the brand is now the official wine of the Tour de France.