The Buddhists say that life is suffering. The capitalists say that life is a struggle. The communists say that life is a team-effort. But the Chileans say that life is beautiful. Why? Because sometimes you are just born with a full deck of cards. Chile is perhaps the only wine making country on Earth that seems to have everything exactly where it wants it.

Spanning a formidable length of 2,700 miles, Chile is the poster child for geographic isolation. With the frigid Antarctic ice off its southern border, a desert off the northern one, and its heart squeezed between the Pacific Ocean on the western border and the epic Andes on the eastern border, it is quite literally a cradle for the choicest wine growing conditions on the planet.

In fact, the isolation has fostered a wine growing environment in which little or no pesticides need be used to ward off grape eating predators, an achievement that speaks most notably when Chile can claim along with Argentina to be one of only two countries in the world to not have been afflicted by the lethal phylloxera pest (this insect destroyed European vineyards in the late 19th century and reeked havoc on California vineyards in the 20th).

To add insult to injury, the grape-growing environment is so favorable, and the land and labor so cheap, that Chilean wine has developed a reputation for having the best value to price ratios on the market.

While Chile's wine history runs deep