This wine doesn’t match today’s concept of quality. Which is to say, it wouldn’t win any wine-geek plaudits for “typicity.” The color is a translucent balsamic strawberry, as if the winemaker had a crisis of confidence and decided halfway through fermentation to make a red instead of a rosé. Or vice versa. It doesn’t smell like black currants, pencil shavings, sagebrush or sex under a full moon. The finish is fine, but you don’t need a stopwatch to assess it. This wine will never score 100 points, and probably not even approach 90.
Yet it tastes so good.
The flavors are light, a hint of candied cherry or strawberry bubblegum. The texture has substance, though — a weight about it that fills the mouth and suggests … well, what does it suggest? To me, history. This is País, the grape brought to the New World by Spanish missionaries in the 1500s to make communion wine. It had many alibis as it spread from Chile (País) and Argentina (Criolla), Mexico (Mision) and California (Mission). Modern grape DNA research has identified it as Listran Prieto, from central Spain. The missionaries may have taken cuttings from there or picked them up during a stop in the Canary Islands. Their record keepers had other things on their mind, unfortunately.
Today a few wineries in Chile and Argentina make wines from Mission, but they are decidedly niche. Some of the “vineyards” actually are wild vines that must be harvested on ladders. Some of California’s old-vine vineyards include patches of Mission, but no one is planting it now — except for the Mariani brothers at Scribe Vineyards in Sonoma.
This wine from Gillmore in Chile makes me wish more wineries would take Mission seriously. With younger drinkers favoring lighter reds, it’s time for an historic grape variety to get a larger País of the action.
Mariposa País 2021 by Gillmore, Loncomilla, Maule Valley, Chile. Estate bottled, old vines, dry farmed. 13% abv. The winery is part of Movi, the independent winemaker movement in Chile. About $16-17. Imported by Global Vineyard Importers.
Dave McIntyre's WineLine 
Very interesting artic