If you are an ambitious producer in the new world, one of the best ways of attracting attention is to stage a blind tasting, pitting your wines against great names from the old world. You line up your wines with some of the finest from France, and perhaps a few top Italians, and get an A team of international tasters to rank them, not knowing what they are. You have nothing to lose. If your wines perform well in this star-studded cast, their reputation is made. If they don’t, it’s no disaster: they are a work in progress.

The late Robert Mondavi was a master of the game. Coincidentally, on the day he died last month, I was at just such a tasting in Zurich, held by the Chilean Eduardo Chadwick of Errazuriz. One of the 12 wines, Seña, was a Chadwick-Mondavi Chilean joint production. It came 10th, which might have been disappointing had it not beaten Château Haut-Brion 2005 and Sassicaia 2004. The other five Chadwick Chileans triumphed, taking places two through to six, beaten only by a renowned Côte Rôtie, Guigal’s La Mouline 2004. I put my top Chadwick wines first and equal fourth.

CELLAR NOTES

2005 Errazuriz Don Maximiano, £22.95 Stylish cabernet-based Chilean. My top mark in the Zurich tasting (winedirect.co.uk, 0845 603 3717; everywine.co.uk, 0800 072 0011, £133.39 for six bottles).

2005 Errazuriz La Cumbre, £19.99/£15.99 Rich, chocolate and cassis-scented shiraz. Second at Zurich and a gold in the International Wine Challenge (Majestic; £15.99 when you buy two or more).

2007 Taste the Difference Chilean Sauvignon, £6.99 Vivid herby, gooseberry fruit and a whiff of smoke (Sainsbury’s).

WINE BLUFF: “Until 1994, Chile’s carmenère vines were labelled merlot”

Anorak fact: a French vine specialist was the first to see that most of Chile’s so-called merlot was the substantially different carmenère variety

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