Pais 2022 Cacique Maravilla 'Pipeno'
Location: the village of Yumbel, in the Bío-Bío Valley in Southern Chile.
Owner & winemaker: Manuel Moraga Gutierrez
Vineyard area: 16 hectares of vines on volcanic soils — part of Manuel’s sprawling 80 hectare farm, where the climate is excellent for growing fruit and vegetables thanks to hot days and cool, dry nights. The farm is covered in fruit and nut trees: almond, walnut, orange, fig, cherry, apple, apricot, pear, peach, and more; there are abundant vegetable gardens, as well as chickens and cattle on the farm.
Vineyard management: Dry-farmed, minimally pruned, and grown organically — some of his pre-phylloxera vines are over 250 years old!
Making of: Grapes are hand-harvested and manually de-stemmed using a zaranda (a traditional bamboo screen), and fermented on indigenous yeasts in open-top vats of raulí, a native pink oak of Chile. The skin from the grapes is used to make Grappa. The free run juice is transferred by gravity into pipas (barrels) of raulí for several months, where the wine is aged on the fine lees. Unfined, unfiltered, no added sulfur.
Personality: Think Gamay — juicy, bright, crunchy red berries with tart acidity and a whiff of smoke. So easy drinking that a liter disappears shockingly fast. Serve slightly chilled.