In May of this year we will be proudly launching 2 new wines in Canada, from a range of Cool Climate wines called RST.
RST was founded in 2016, as a project not only to marry the great terroir grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with some newly-discovered cool coastal Chilean vineyards, but also to marry some great oenological wisdom.
RST was originally the idea of Steven Campbell at the Lifford Wine Agency in Canada, who has known and worked with two generations of the Echeverria family. The project combines the wisdom of the Echeverria family’s long winemaking experience with that of Canadian winemaker Thomas Bachelder’s, and his passion for single-vineyard, cool climate wines.
The wines of RST are made at Vina Echeverria in Curico, with Head Winemaker Roberto Echeverria, his team (Catalina Diaz & Victor Rivera), as well as Thomas Bachelder, who has been part of the RST winemaking team since its inception. They are all very excited to work with the coastal, riverside terroirs of Chile, and help define the single-vineyard ‘Ucuquer,’ (Litueche), in particular.
“After years in Burgundy, Oregon and Niagara, as a cool climate Chardonnay freak, since I started working with Chile in 2016, I have been absolutely surprised and stunned to see the immense and varied palette of cool flavours coming out of Chile.
We are only beginning to understand new coastal regions like Litueche, and as we research further and isolate riverside Vineyards like Ucuquer, and we try to understand their great unrealised potential, I feel that I can stay with some certainty that the story of great, terroir-specific Chilean Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is just beginning to unfold…”
—Thomas Bachelder
RST is available to buy in Quebec’s SAQ.com and we will be presenting the wines at coolchardonnay.org from the 20-22 July in Niagara.
