Some top examples:

A hundred miles down the Pan American Highway from Santiago, in the middle of Chile's bounteous, snowmelt-fed garden valley packed with artichokes, cherries, asparagus, potatoes, oranges, strawberries, avocados and onions, just off a crumbling asphalt road clogged with horse-drawn carts and bicycles, lies Casa Lapostolle -- one of the world's most modern wineries.

It isn't even finished yet. In their hurry to make wine, its owners poured concrete slabs and mounted state-of-the-art computerized presses and stainless steel fermenting tanks covered only by black nursery screen -- planning to erect a building around them when time permits.

Ask resident winemaker Nicolas Rappeneau how it differs from the French wineries where he learned his trade, and he says: "Actually, it's a lot more modern."

The modernity is financed by a $12-million investment by France's Marnier-Lapostolle family, owners of Chateau de Sancerre in the Loire Valley, makers of the world-famous Grand Marnier liqueur.

"In France, there's no place to plant new vines; it's even hard to buy more grapes," says Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle. "So we decided to make a new wine. I was put in charge of making a study of where."

For expert help she turned to Michel Rolland, owner of Chateau Le Bon Pasteur in Bordeaux's Pomerol area and consulting winemaker to eight other wineries, from France to Argentina.

They settled on Chile's Colchagua wine subregion, forming a partnership with the Chilean Rabat family, which had founded the winery in 1927, buying acres of vines already planted, some of which today are more than 100 years old.

"We provide the equipment, the money and the expertise," says Marnier-Lapostolle.

"Chile had good grapes but not very good winemakers," says Rolland. His toughest task: Even when he offered to pay growers for six tons per acre if they would thin their crops to deliver only four, they protested before finally agreeing.

"In Chile, it's criminal to cut grapes," Rappeneau laments. "It's like cutting off an arm."

At Casa Lapostolle, Rolland vows to make Chilean wines, not copies of his French ones.

"We're seeking the Chilean personality, how to express it," he says. "Chile is warmer, with less rain. We want the wines to be sweet and round."

From Pomerol, where the merlot grape is king, Rolland is grooming his Casa Lapostolle merlot to join the tiny new category of Chilean wines that aim to compete with the best in the world. It is hugely complex, with shifting aromas and flavors from cherry liqueur to mint to chocolate, at only $12.

"We're prepared to make Chile's best wine," Rappeneau vows.

"And next year," adds vineyard president Patricio Eguiguren, "we'll put on a roof."

The story of this 550-acre wine estate in the suburbs of Santiago is the opposite of Casa Lapostolle's. Here, tradition rules. First planted to vines by the Spanish in the 1550s, it was bought by the Cousino family in the 1850s. Even today, rifle-toting huasos on horseback patrol its tall perimeter walls.

There's an easy, patrician manner about Arturo Cousino, the estate's fourth-generation manager. A sense that things happen in their own time.

Only in 1989 did the family invest in the latest equipment, replacing the old concrete fermenting tanks and rauli barrels. He also slowed the flow of Andes water to his vines to restrict their yield and intensify flavor.