You could get a stiff neck walking around Santiago, Chile, just from looking up. That’s how mesmerizing the first rung of the snowcapped Andes are, towering above the city to the east. Now, as the Southern Hemisphere summer begins, snow-melt from those peaks irrigates the ever expanding vineyards in the plains and valleys north and south of the city. Afternoon breezes, alternately sliding off the Andes and from the cool Pacific coastline, keep temperatures moderate even though the sun blazes every day during the growing season. Chile is an easy place in which to ripen healthy wine grapes.

They ripen so easily, in fact, that they were long like the spoiled child who never amounted to much. The wines had charm, but no backbone. Until a dozen years or so ago, I’d find myself casting Chilean wines mainly in the role of inexpensive party quaffers. My all time, no-think, favorite brand was Concha y Toro’s Casillero del Diablo Merlot, juicy and soft at around $7 per bottle. For a wine to make a dinner special, on the other hand, Chile was never a place where I would look.

Since the mid-1990s, the wine picture in that needle-narrow land (2,666 miles long, but averaging only 80 miles wide) has radically changed. More discipline in the vineyards and wineries has sharply upped the quality of Chilean wines, both at the familiar budget level and at a burgeoning luxury level that had formerly been unreachable. During a week of visiting wineries in Chile last month, I sampled, along with reams of well-made bargain bottles, a smaller cadre of intense, poised, and characterful wines that can hold their own very near or even at the wine world’s top tier. While not cheap, these bottles were more tenderly priced than other, better established wines in their class.

The first grapes to show the promise of real quality in Chile were merlot and cabernet sauvignon, grown for more than a century in the warm plains on the outskirts of Santiago. The whites tended to be insipid. Lately, though, the cast of grapes capable of Chilean excellence has expanded. Among the reds, the new star is pinot noir, a famously finicky variety. When carefully nurtured in new, relatively cool vineyard locations near the Pacific Ocean, it can even resemble the fetching style of New Zealand pinot noir. Syrah, first planted only a decade ago, can be a knockout. And then there’s carménère, a spicy grape that was imported from Bordeaux in the 19th century. But carménère might as well be a new grape, since winemakers have only recently figured out how to make it ripen properly. Deservedly, it’s become Chile’s emblematic grape, just as malbec has that title on the Argentine side of the Andes.

Chile’s menu of white wines, too, has been upgraded. Dull sauvignon blanc (it might as well have been called sauvignon blah) was once the country’s mainstay white. Now the best versions are freshly aromatic and zingy to taste — startlingly so in the case of the pricey but state-of-the-art Casa Marin Laurel Vineyard bottling ($35 at Morrell, morrellwine.com) or the admirable budget version from Veramonte ($7.97 at PJ Wine, pjwine.com). Both of these sauvignon blancs are from ultra-cool vineyards that have only recently been planted. Chardonnay, too, has gained intensity, and unexpected varieties are also making promising Chilean appearances, notably viognier and gewürztraminer.

I felt the hum of new Chilean wine energy whirring at maximum intensity at Cono Sur, a winery founded a mere 15 years ago. It’s based 95 miles south of Santiago in the Colchagua Valley, a traditional wine region. But head winemaker Adolfo Hurtado sources his grapes from 40 specialized vineyard regions, ranging from Bío Bío in the south to Elqui in the north. Cono Sur is on the fast track to become the world’s largest producer of pinot noir, a grape that doesn’t normally lend itself to mass production — or to low prices. But Cono Sur’s basic pinot noir bottling delivers that grape’s silky texture and taste at a throwaway price ($8 at K&D Wines, kdwine.com). It’s not easy to draw the almost urgent intensity of red-berry fruit out of pinot noir, but Hurtado succeeds with his 20 Barrels label ($31 for the 2006 vintage at Pops, popswine.com). Not long ago, pinot noir with this kind of palate presence was undreamed of in Chile.

I also headed north from Santiago to visit Errazuriz, an old-line winery first planted in 1870 in the warm Aconcagua Valley, where vineyards vie with new avocado orchards (after copper mining and fruits, wine is Chile’s third-largest export). In the 1990s, Errazuriz partnered with Napa Valley’s Robert Mondavi in several ventures, notably Seña, intended to be Chile’s best red wine. Overextended, Mondavi imploded and was taken over by Constellation Brands a few years ago, but Errazuriz, including Seña, has gone from strength to strength under proprietor Eduardo Chadwick. Seña ($70 for the 2002 vintage at 67 Wines, 67wine.com) is a ringer for ambitious, modern-style Bordeaux. For a great red wine that is true to Chile alone, I’d choose Errazuriz Don Maximiano Estate Carménère 2005 ($33 at Grande Harvest Wines, grandeharvestwines.com). Too often, carménère stubbornly refuses to ripen fully and ends up tasting of green pepper, but the grape seems to luxuriate in the Aconcagua Valley’s long growing season, and Errazuriz is its master. This version is not deep or plush, but it is intense and it dances with spiced cherry fruit. Keep an eye out for KAI 2005, a new carménère from Errazuriz that should be available soon. It’s the best carménère I’ve ever tasted.

While only Cono Sur and Errazuriz are covered in any detail above, this pair of wineries are indicators of how both new and traditional enterprises are pushing the Chilean envelope of wine quality and variety. I’m still devoted to Casillero del Diablo at party time. But when it’s time to choose wines for that special dinner, a growing array of Chilean wines have what it takes to grace the table.