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Casa Marin Winery Guide

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Winery Overview

Among the best of Chile’s newly established wine estates, Casa Marin is a very recent success story, has been producing quality wine for little over ten years. This small, family-owned winery was one of the first to pioneer vine growing in the San Antonio Valley, a new and very fine coastal wine region. Indeed, the property has 40 hectares of exceptional vineyards that are just a few kilometers inland from the Pacific. Their vineyards show the great diversity of terroir that the San Antonio Valley is capable of offering, a mix of clay, limestone, sand, and volcanic soils have been carefully exploited to produce seductive Pinot Noir, elegant Riesling and pungent, powerful Sauvignon Blanc. The winemaking philosophy of Casa Marin focuses on creating quality driven wines that reflect, and draw upon their terroirs, and it shows!

Casa Marin was founded by Maria Luz Marin, a wine professional of some twenty years’ experience. Before embarking on her dream of producing wine, she worked as a master blender for different wineries, blending their wines according to the wishes of her customers. While this job paid the bills, Maria dreamed of one day controlling her own destiny. However, while she admired the wines emanating from Chile’s most famous region, the Central Valley, Maria was determined to do something different. She wanted to make wine in uncharted territory and so Casa Marin was born.

Maria realized her ambition in 1999, planting some vineyards in the coastal village of Lo Abarca. The cool-climate San Antonio Valley was then considered a risky site for vine growing, with no track record of producing wine but Maria was convinced that the variety of soil and unique micro-climate would produce spectacular results. 40 hectares, many awards and 15,000 cases later, she was proven right!

Today, Maria continues to run the estate with her son Felipe Marin and is currently the only female owner of a Chilean winery. What Maria Luz and Felipe have achieved in this short space of time is nothing short of a phenomenal – Casa Marin produces an impressive range of cool-climate wines that are consistently superb year after year. The Pinot Noir, in particular, is world class; an elegant, red berry scented delight, impressively intense and truffled. It is wines like these which cement the fact that Chile can offer more famous regions like Burgundy some serious competition. Casa Marin was voted ‘winery of the year’ by Wines of Chile recently, which was well deserved. Add into the mix the formidable presence and welcome from Maria Luz herself, the majestic beauty of the San Antonio Valley and you have the recipe for a memorable winery visit.

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Further Reading

Author

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James lawrence

With a passion for food & drink that verges on the obsessive, wine writer James Lawrence has traveled the world in search of the perfect tipple. To date, nothing has surpassed the 1952 R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Rioja Reserva, tasted in the cobweb-filled cellars with owner María José. Meanwhile, James has been writing for a wide variety of publications for over 12 years, including Telegraph, Decanter, Harpers, The Drinks Business, and Wine Business International. He lives in South Wales and returns to his former university city, Bilbao, as much as possible.

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