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Read moreYou founded one of Chile’s most innovative wine projects – tell us more about its inception?
Garage was a hobby for years. We were searching for something missing from the trade at the time. This pursuit became more serious when Alvaro (PhD wine scientist) joined us. The experiments became small batches we later commercialized as parcels— each from a small vineyard. We ended up far from the beaten track of the usual suspects/growers in the Maule on the Coastal Range. The farms were smaller, and we were more comfortable working with small farmers. We got more involved and focused on farming.
The trade back then was fixated on the large scale. We had to muster countless painstaking workarounds to survive the early years. We learned to silk-screen bottles (before short-run digital printing existed), waxed capsules with crayon wax, and welded our own small lagar-like tanks from repurposed stainless steel for the cellar. Most importantly, we got involved in farming with the vignadores and developed a model to farm parcels. These pulled us closer to the earth, the farming, and the people.
Innovation does not always involve more technology, leading to more efficient production and cheaper products. Reinterpreting existing methods with a focus on quality can be more effective than scalability. Sometimes, we must look back to find a way forward. Almost all of our parcels are less than 5,000 bottles of wine to this day.
The old vines of the Maule will never produce more kilos than modern clones, and they cannot be mechanized, so they will never be cheaper to farm. However, with innovative regenerative agriculture, they can produce complex and rare fruit and wine—and today’s consumers prize this. Old vines are an innovative business with a 75-year barrier to entry: the 75+ years they take to grow!
Maule was historically associated with bulk wines and large volumes in the 20th century. When did this start to change?
There are hundreds of years of history-making wine in Maule. Historically, Maule was all about local wines and local producers, where people drank wine grown in their own village—most likely a neighbor. Farmers grew wheat, fruit, and vegetables, had livestock, and made wine. Farming was mixed, and many of the farms further from the beaten track remain mixed today.
By the 20th century farmers produced wine in the Maule for more than 350 years. What began as local wine (and church wine) became a brisk business in the hands of various Basque and Catalan families. It was a popular wine sent in rail cars from the Maule to Santiago to be bottled. By the early 1900s, when the French varieties were recognized amongst the well-to-do [even exported], the popular wine in Chile was sourced in the Maule. All of this history, local and Santiaguino, is what allowed the vineyards to grow old, and viticulture-wise, so we can appreciate old vine concentration and complexity today.
Chile’s French varietals have since traveled the world and made a name for themselves as competitive French-like wines. Over the past 10-15 years, the world has been exposed to Chile’s original old-vine wines of Pais, Cinsault, Cariñena, Moscatel, and Semillon.
Can you give us an overview of the soils and climate of the Maule Valley?
We work in a particular part of the Maule, closer to the coast, in the Coastal Range mountains. South America has two mountain ranges. The original mountains are the Coastal Range, 100 – 110 million years older than the Andes. Think of Argentina on the Andes facing East and Chile on the Coastal Range facing East.
For me, the decomposed granite and schist of these mountains are the treasure of the Maule, Itata and BioBio alongside their old vines. We produce wines of 12 – 12.5 alcohol naturally. They are terrific to enjoy over lunch and return to the office. Our top-shelf Cru Truquilemu typically has 12.7 – 12.8 alcohol. It took some getting used to for many tasters in Chile and abroad.
Apart from the splendid Carignan, which other varieties really thrive here?
Pais, Garnacha, Semillon and Malbec. Remember that Malbec first came to South America through the port of Concepcion and was planted in San Rosendo. We have a Malbec that is only 132 km from San Rosendo.
There are also Criolla varieties like San Francisco. San Francisco comes from the crossing of Listen Prieto and Moscatel, which came from Europe. Note: Criolla refers to grapes born of crossing varieties once they are in the Americas. It is a tragic misnomer on the part of the Argentines to have used this name for the Listen Prieto in Argentina. As more DNA analysis is done and we discover more unique Criolla crossings like San Francisco, we are selling ourselves short.
Have you been adversely impacted by climate change in the region, and how have you managed the fallout?
The effect of climate change is very complex. That is not a way of saying it is not real. We have had more, not less, water over the past couple of years— sometimes flooding. This is because the dew point is changing, and what once fell as snow in the Andes can now fall as rain all at once. Think of snow in the mountains like a battery that charges up in winter and then gives back [water] over the long summer as it melts. With so much water falling during the winter, we must adapt farming techniques to take better advantage. We should be planting vineyards in key lines and not in straight rows. Straight was simpler for tractors and mechanization, but modern tractors can drive in curves! We are working to adapt a few old vineyards to keyline design, maximizing the use of existing plants while strategically layering additional vegetation to enhance biodiversity and soil health. It is slow work.
