Beverage Insights India

For much of the Indian wine market, Argentina remains a simple proposition: Mendoza, Malbec, altitude. It is a shorthand that worked remarkably well. Malbec gave Argentina a global identity, Mendoza supplied scale, and the Andes provided a romantic story of sun, elevation, and cold nights. Yet spending time with producers across Mendoza reveals that this perception is increasingly incomplete. The more compelling Argentine story today is not simply about vineyard elevation. It is about what happens when producers ask precise, micro-level questions: Which part of Mendoza? Which side of a valley? Which soil structure? Which parcel? This shift is visible across producers with different histories. At Zuccardi, research centres on individual soil profiles. At Catena Zapata, decades of work turned high-altitude viticulture from an experiment into a fine-wine benchmark. At Bodega Norton, historic Semillon sits alongside experimental Grüner Veltliner in the high Uco Valley. And Kaiken, founded by Chilean winemaker Aurelio Montes, approaches Mendoza with an outsider’s curiosity, exploring new terroirs rather than treating the region as a monolith.
Beyond the Malbec Shorthand
Malbec remains central to Argentina, but assuming the country can be understood primarily through grape variety deserves reconsideration. The transformation of Mendoza's premium sector is about moving from variety to place. Catena Zapata pioneered this movement. When Nicolás Catena began exploring the Uco Valley in the 1990s, planting Malbec at the Adrianna Vineyard was a radical gamble. Adrianna sits at roughly 1,450 metres in Gualtallary, while Nicasia in Paraje Altamira lies at 1,095 metres. Though both are high-altitude sites, their soils, UV exposure, and topography yield fundamentally different growing environments.
"High altitude" is a useful starting point, but an incomplete descriptor. At Adrianna, intense UV radiation, cool temperatures, and calcareous alluvial soils contribute to a distinct structural tension. Nicasia, despite its Uco Valley address, offers a completely different soil profile and microclimate. Catena's research through the Catena Institute of Wine helped turn these observations into a systematic study of how micro-terroir alters wine expression.

The Andes mountains divide Chile and Argentina, but for Kaiken, they serve as a bridge.Founded in 2002 by Chilean winemaker Aurelio Montes—co-founder of Viña Montes—Kaiken takes its name from the caiquén, a wild Patagonian goose that routinely crosses the Andean cordillera. Rather than mirroring a traditional estate expanding into new valleys, Kaiken began with an outsider’s curiosity: a Chilean producer bringing technical expertise across the border to examine what Mendoza’s distinct terroirs could achieve on their own terms.During our visit, tasting alongside Juan Pablo Yáñez (export manager) revealed how that original cross-border concept has evolved into an agile portfolio spanning two primary pillars: traditional, lower-elevation sites in Luján de Cuyo and high-altitude, cool-climate micro-terroirs across the Uco Valley and extreme pre-Andean sites in the Canota Valley.
The Core Philosophy: Variety and Regional Depth
Montes brought decades of Chilean winemaking experience to Argentina, but Kaiken was never intended to produce Chilean-style wines on Argentine soil. Instead, the winery built its foundation around matching specific grape varieties to the soils of these two major regions. This perspective is evident in the Kaiken Ultra range. While single-varietal 100% Malbec remains central, the range gives equal weight to 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from historical vineyards in Luján, alongside 100% Cabernet Franc from cooler Uco Valley sub-zones. The Kaiken Ultra Chardonnay (100% Chardonnay) brings those two distinct environments together, blending fruit from classic Vistalba with high-altitude, calcareous blocks in Gualtallary to achieve a balance of rich texture and crisp mountain acidity.

At Bodega Norton, history is not preserved as a static artifact. It remains active in the vineyards, the subterranean cellars, and the evolution of the wines. Our visit brought together several distinct chapters of that trajectory. Tasting with a vineyard specialist Gonzalo Ortiz Maldonado who is now on the commercial side of things and enologist Marcos Hernán Scarel López, followed by conversations over lunch with the CEO Tomás Lange, highlighted Norton's broader identity: a century-old house balancing its established roots in Luján de Cuyo with high-altitude experimentation in the Uco Valley.
From Railway Engineering to Viticulture
Norton's origins trace to 1895, when English engineer Edmund James Palmer Norton arrived in Argentina to build the Transandine Railway connecting Mendoza with Chile. Settling in the foothills of the Andes, he acquired land in Perdriel, establishing the first major vineyard south of the Mendoza River. By 1910, Norton had integrated its production into the very rail network its founder helped construct. The winery's estate-bottled wines were served in dining cars crossing the Andes and shipped directly to Buenos Aires. This early focus on origin and distribution set a precedent that continues to define the winery's international focus today.

Mendoza's modern wine story cannot be told without Catena Zapata. Our visit began with the Head of Hospitality; Caroline Fuller, who took us through the winery and its history before we sat down for a tasting with Winemaker Ernesto Bajda and Export Director Marcelo Marasco. The combination of the tour and the wines offered a useful perspective on the Catena story: its long pursuit of altitude, its work with different vineyard sites, and its role in establishing Argentina as a producer of serious, age-worthy fine wines.
The Roots of a Century-Old Vision
That story began in 1898 when Nicola Catena, an Italian immigrant from Marche, arrived in Mendoza. In 1902, he planted his first Malbec vineyard in Lunlunta, naming it Angélica in honor of his mother. For decades, the family produced wine in the traditional Argentine style—concentrating on volume and local consumption.
The turning point came in the early 1980s. While serving as a visiting professor of economics at UC Berkeley, Nicola's grandson, Nicolás Catena Zapata, spent time in Napa Valley. Watching California winemakers successfully challenge European classics by matching French varieties to specific California microclimates convinced Nicolás that Argentina could do the same. Upon returning to Mendoza, he sold off the family's table-wine division to focus entirely on premium fine wine, embarking on a search for cooler terroirs that took him beyond traditional regions and into the high-altitude reaches of the Uco Valley.

A visit to Zuccardi Valle de Uco is a useful reminder that the Uco Valley is not a single terroir. The region encompasses different elevations, soil types, climates, and vineyard locations, and Zuccardi has spent years trying to understand how those differences influence the wines.
An Engine of Innovation: From Water to Wine
There is a historical irony in how Zuccardi became a wine producer. In 1950, engineer Alberto "Tito" Zuccardi arrived in Mendoza to design and install agricultural irrigation systems in the high-altitude desert. To prove the effectiveness of his irrigation technology to skeptical local farmers, Tito planted a demonstration vineyard in Maipú in 1963. What began as an engineering trial laid the foundation for three generations of viticultural exploration.
Today, that engineering DNA continues to shape the family's approach in the Uco Valley. Drip irrigation is no longer used simply to deliver water to vines; it has been transformed into a tool for micro-terroir precision. Because alluvial gravels, clay, and calcareous stones hold water at vastly different rates, Zuccardi maps soil pits extensively to divide single vineyards into precise irrigation blocks—ensuring each parcel receives tailored hydration without masking site identity.
Our visit began with Hernán del Río from the winery's I+D—Investigación y Desarrollo, or Research & Development—team. Rather than going straight to the tasting, Hernán took us through the soil pits, explaining the different layers, stones, and calcareous material found beneath the vineyards.
The tasting that followed made those observations considerably more relevant. We tasted wines from San Pablo, Gualtallary, and Paraje Altamira, including Chardonnay, Semillón, Malbec, and Cabernet Sauvignon. We also tasted Gravascal and Supercal, two wines that take the investigation down to an individual parcel level. It provided a good introduction to what makes the Zuccardi Valle de Uco project distinctive: a sustained effort to understand the differences within the Uco Valley rather than treating it as one homogeneous wine region.

There are ideas in wine that arrive long before the world is ready for them. Sometimes they disappear because the technology does not yet exist to make them practical. Sometimes they return decades later, when circumstances have changed and an old question suddenly becomes relevant again.
 At Viña Teillery in Maipo, that story begins with José Teillery.
When I met his daughter Solange, she described a philosophy her father had carried for decades: that wine should, in many ways, be made naturally, as it was in ancient times. It was not a reaction to the modern natural-wine movement. It came much earlier. During his time studying enology in Bordeaux, José had already questioned the role of sulphites in winemaking, going as far as presenting a thesis on their use — and particularly on the possibility of not using them. The idea was ahead of its time.
The technology and cellar conditions required to make such wines consistently were simply not where they needed to be. What was theoretically possible was not necessarily practically achievable. Decades later, however, technology had caught up with the idea. And Teillery was ready to try again.
An Idea Born in Bordeaux
José Teillery's connection with wine began long before the current natural-wine conversation. His family had French Basque roots, with Joseph Teillery arriving in Chile from Cambo in the French Basque Country. José himself studied agronomy at the Universidad de Chile before pursuing enology in Bordeaux. It was there, in the early 1960s, that his thinking about sulphites began to take shape. According to accounts of his career, José presented a thesis in Bordeaux in 1963 examining the use — and especially the non-use — of sulphites in wine. At a time when sulphites were an established and important tool in winemaking, questioning their necessity was hardly an obvious direction to take. The problem was not necessarily the idea itself. The problem was control. Without the protection that sulphites could provide, winemaking became considerably less forgiving. Oxidation, microbial spoilage and instability could turn a philosophical proposition into a commercial failure. The cellar simply did not have the level of technological control that modern winemakers could eventually access. So the idea waited.
to answer it.

From Theory to Total
Eventually, the idea that had existed first as a thesis and then as a family philosophy became a wine. Total represents the most uncompromising expression of that journey. The wine is made from organically grown grapes without added sulphites, taking José's original question to its logical conclusion. The significance of Total 2019 is therefore greater than what is written on its label. 
The Vineyard Comes First
But the Teillery story does not begin in the cellar. The family's organic approach extends back to the vineyard itself. The Los Guindos property in Isla de Maipo was selected and developed with organic cultivation in mind, with the objective of working in greater harmony with the surrounding environment and avoiding unnecessary chemical inputs. This is significant because the winery's philosophy cannot be reduced to what happens after the grapes arrive. If the objective is to intervene less during winemaking, the quality and health of the grapes become even more important. In that sense, organic viticulture and sulphite-free winemaking are not two separate ideas at Teillery. They are parts of the same continuum.
Two Wines, One Journey
That journey is particularly interesting when tasted through two very different Teillery wines: Total 2019 and the Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2018. Total is the obvious statement of intent. It represents the culmination of José's decades-old interest in reducing intervention and making wine without added sulphites. It is the wine where the original Bordeaux question is most clearly visible in the bottle. The Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 provides a different perspective.
Cabernet Sauvignon has a long and established history in Chile, and a Reserva wine sits within a much more familiar framework of Chilean winemaking. Yet placing it alongside Total reveals something important: Teillery's philosophy is not dependent on producing only wines that fit neatly into the natural-wine category. The Cabernet allows the family to express a more classical side of Chilean wine while remaining grounded in the same attention to vineyard health and Organic winemaking. 
An Idea That Outlived Its Time
José Teillery may have looked to the past for inspiration, but the wines that eventually emerged from his philosophy could only have been made when the tools of modern winemaking caught up. That is what makes Teillery worth looking at today. The story is not simply about organic vineyards or sulphite-free wine. It is about an old idea surviving long enough to become practical. It is about a winemaker questioning convention before there was a movement built around that question. And perhaps most importantly, it is a reminder that innovation in wine does not always mean inventing something new. Sometimes it means asking an old question again — and waiting until the world has finally developed the means ​

There is an uncomfortable assumption in wine that size and individuality rarely coexist. The bigger a winery becomes, the more difficult it seems to preserve the things that make wine interesting: a sense of place, the personality of a vineyard, the quirks of an old vine or the differences between one vintage and another. Scale brings efficiency and consistency, but somewhere along the way, the argument goes, wine can become more about the brand than the land. Luis Felipe Edwards is an interesting counterpoint. Today, LFE has more than 2,000 hectares of vineyards across Chile. It has the infrastructure and production capabilities of a substantial international winery. Yet spend time looking at where those vineyards are and, more importantly, why they were planted, and a different picture begins to emerge. There is Colchagua, where the family story began. There are vineyards climbing to 900 metres in the Andes foothills. There are vineyards close to the Pacific in Leyda. There are old País and Cinsault vines in Itata.  The interesting question isn't whether a large winery can make good wine. Of course it can.
The more interesting question is whether a large winery can still make wine that feels special.
It Started With Colchagua
The story starts in 1976, when Luis Felipe Edwards Sr and his wife returned from Europe and purchased Fundo San José de Puquillay in Colchagua. The property had 60 hectares of planted vineyards, a small winery and a historic farmhouse, sitting in a horseshoe-shaped valley against the foothills of the Andes. It was a very different Chilean wine industry then. The early years were about agriculture, vineyards and selling wine in bulk. The family gradually expanded its landholding, eventually reaching a point where it could begin thinking beyond simply growing grapes and supplying wine. The decisive change came in the 1990s, when LFE began bottling under its own name. The first wines appeared in 1995, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, and the family began building a winery that could take its wines into international markets.Growth followed. But what is interesting about LFE's evolution is that geographical expansion did not lead to one increasingly uniform style. Instead, the family began looking for places that could give them something different.

Doña Bernarda: A Family Diary in a Bottle
The most revealing wine in this story may be Doña Bernarda. Made since 1997 and named after Luis Felipe Edwards Sr's wife, Doña Bernarda is LFE's flagship red. Yet it is not a wine built around a rigid formula. Cabernet Sauvignon provides the foundation, while the other varieties can change according to the vintage and what the mountain vineyards deliver. The wine is sourced from the Puquillay Alto mountain vineyards, where LFE began planting at higher elevations after recognising the potential of the slopes' soils and climate. There is something quite revealing about that approach. A prestige wine is often expected to reproduce an identity year after year. Doña Bernarda instead allows the identity of the wine to evolve with the vintage. It makes the wine feel less like a recipe and more like a record of the family's understanding of the mountain.
From the Andes to the Pacific
If Puquillay Alto represents elevation, LFE's vineyards around Leyda provide the opposite experience. Here, the landscape falls towards the Pacific. The El Canelo estate lies around nine kilometres from the ocean, while the Atalaya estate is even closer, just 2.3 kilometres from the Pacific. These are cool-climate vineyards where maritime influence becomes a fundamental part of the equation. The soils are different too. El Canelo has alluvial soils with clay textures, gravel and exposed granitic rock, while Atalaya sits on marine-origin terraces over sandstone and quartz.
The wines therefore don't need to be forced into the style of Colchagua. Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay can respond to a cooler, coastal environment. LFE's Marea range gives this side of the portfolio a clear expression, where freshness and maritime influence become as important as fruit. Marea is part of LFE's current coastal range, alongside its Leyda wines
Looking Back to Move Forward
The country becomes increasingly interesting when you move away from the familiar image of Cabernet and Carmenère in warm central valleys and begin looking at the vineyards that survived outside that narrative. That is where LFE's work with País and Cinsault in Itata becomes particularly relevant. The winery's Cinsault and País wines come from small producers in different parts of Itata. The País vines are more than 80 years old, while the Cinsault vines are more than 30 years old. Both are traditionally head-trained and grown on their own roots. These are varieties with history rather than fashion behind them. País arrived in Chile centuries ago and survived because generations of growers continued working with it, long before the international wine industry decided that Chile's future should be built around varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. There is something almost contradictory about a large, modern winery returning to such vineyards.​

What Does Scale Actually Mean?
This is where the LFE story becomes more interesting than a simple family-winery narrative.
LFE is large. There is no reason to pretend otherwise. Its vineyards span more than 2,000 hectares, and its production facilities are highly modern. The winery describes itself as one of Chile's largest, with a presence in more than 100 countries. That is industrial scale. But the question is what happens between the scale of the operation and the bottle. If scale is used simply to produce more of the same wine, then size becomes a limitation. If it is used to explore altitude, coastal influence, different soils, old vineyards and heritage varieties, then size can become an advantage.
The resources of a large winery can allow it to take risks that a smaller producer might not be able to afford. It can maintain vineyards in different regions. It can experiment with varieties. It can separate vineyard parcels. It can wait for a vineyard to prove itself. In that sense, LFE's size may actually be part of what makes its wines interesting. 
And LFE's challenge and perhaps its achievement has been to explore regions without allowing size to erase their individuality. For a large winery, that may be the hardest thing to accomplish.
To grow without becoming generic.

How old vines, dry farming and a forgotten grape are giving Chile’s Maule Valley a new sense of place. On Chilean National Wine Day, I found myself tasting a group of wines that seemed to share a rather unusual surname. VIGNO.
The wines were made by different producers, from different vineyards and in different styles. Yet they had something fundamental in common: old-vine Carignan from the drylands of Maule.
I was tasting them with two winemakers who offered two different ways of understanding the project. Pilar Miranda of Garage wine co. spoke about why VIGNO exists. Carlos Rojas of Odfjell spoke about where it comes from. Put those two perspectives together and VIGNO becomes much more than a collective label. It becomes a way of reading Maule.
It began with Old Carignan
For much of modern Chilean wine history, Carignan was hardly the variety one would expect to become a flagship. It was a workhorse grape, planted extensively in the drylands of Maule and often associated with inexpensive bulk wine. Yet the vineyards themselves contained something increasingly rare: old vines that had survived without irrigation, often trained as low bush vines and farmed by small growers. Today, Chile has only around 858 hectares of Carignan, with more than 700 hectares concentrated in Maule, according to VIGNO. That is tiny compared with the country's more than 40,000 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon. The story of modern Chilean Carignan goes back to the aftermath of the 1939 earthquake. Pablo Joublan, then director of the Cauquenes Experimental Centre, promoted southern French varieties such as Carignan for the dry, warm conditions of Maule. The intention was partly to improve the colour and quality of wines based on País. The irony is that what was once regarded as an ordinary grape ended up creating one of Chile's most interesting contemporary wine movements.
Why VIGNO?
“VIGNO was born in 2011,” Pilar Miranda told me. The objective, she explained, was to promote Carignan from Maule — particularly wines from old, bush-trained, dry-farmed vineyards. But there was another part of the mission that is arguably even more important. It was about promoting the viñadores — the local growers who had maintained these vineyards. That idea goes right to the heart of VIGNO. This wasn't simply a group of wineries deciding to make premium Carignan. It was an attempt to put value back into an agricultural landscape that had spent decades being undervalued. The organisation's own history traces its origins to a group of winemakers making old-vine Carignan who began meeting as a lunch club in 2009. Formal discussions followed, and the association was legally established in 2011.But the founders did not immediately agree on what VIGNO should be. Some argued for 100% Carignan from old vines. Others, including Marcelo Retamal, believed the larger objective should be the preservation of the viticultural heritage of the Maule drylands, rather than simply protecting one grape variety. Renán Cancino, himself from Sauzal and one of the important figures in the foundation of the movement, kept returning to another question: what did the project actually mean for the small growers who owned these vineyards? Those arguments ultimately helped define VIGNO.

The rules are simple. The landscape isn't.
The VIGNO framework is remarkably straightforward.

1. The wine must contain at least 85% Carignan.
2. The vines must be at least 30 years old, although most are considerably older.
3. They must be dry-farmed, without irrigation.
4. The vines must be traditionally head-trained or gobelet-trained.
5. The grapes must come from the defined dryland territory of southern Maule.
6. And the wine must spend at least 24 months ageing, whether in foudres, barrels, cement, amphorae or bottle, depending on the producer and style.

The rules are independently certified, with vineyard criteria supported by research from the University of Chile and the University of Talca. Those rules establish the common language.
But they don't make the wines identical. And that is where Maule becomes fascinating.
One VIGNO, many regions
Carlos Rojas of Odfjell describes the VIGNO territory as comprising three communes and six subzones. That distinction is important because “Maule” can sound like one enormous, homogeneous wine region. It isn't. The territory stretches between the Maule River and the southern limits of the region, bounded by the Loncomilla River to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. VIGNO describes almost 19,000 hectares of vineyards within this broad territory, with Carignan occupying only a small fraction of it. And the Pacific matters. So does the difference between the coastal hills and the warmer interior. Carlos explained that some VIGNO vineyards are considerably closer to the ocean and therefore experience a fresher climate, while others lie further inland and are warmer. The difference can be dramatic enough to affect the harvest calendar. Some Carignan may be picked towards the end of February. Others can remain on the vine until the middle of April. That is a remarkable variation for wines carrying the same VIGNO identity. It is also the reason that simply saying “Maule Carignan” doesn't tell the whole story.
The geography is beginning to matter.
Reading Maule through the six sub-zones:
Melozal — One of the warmer inland areas of the VIGNO landscape, with hot, dry summers and limited maritime influence. Its old Carignan vines produce wines with ripe fruit, concentration and firm structure.
Huerta de Maule — One of the historic heartlands of Chilean viticulture, with a long tradition of dry-farmed, head-trained vineyards. Old Carignan here tends towards generous fruit, freshness and earthy complexity.
Cauquenes — Inland Maule, but influenced by the cooling effect of the coastal range. Its old Carignan vineyards can combine ripe fruit and depth with savoury character, acidity and firm tannins.
Sauzal — A particularly important name in the VIGNO story, both geographically and historically. Its dry-farmed old vines produce Carignan with freshness, floral character, red fruit and an often distinctly earthy, mineral edge.
Empedrado — Closer to the Pacific and among Maule's more maritime-influenced areas. The cooler conditions and coastal hills bring greater freshness and tension to the wines, while the old vines provide concentration.
Loncomilla — One of the traditional wine-growing areas of Maule and closely associated with the origins of VIGNO. Its warm days and dry-farmed old vines produce Carignan with ripe fruit, spice, structure and lively acidity.
Not another Chilean wine brand
There is a temptation to compare VIGNO with organisations such as Germany's VDP or Catalonia's Corpinnat. There are similarities: all are producer-led attempts to communicate quality and origin through a collective framework. But VIGNO's motivation is different. The VDP has developed a highly structured hierarchy around the precision of origin. Corpinnat has built a collective identity around Penedès, organic farming, hand harvesting and production requirements. VIGNO begins somewhere else. It begins with a question: What happens if we give value to something that the market has spent decades undervaluing? The answer is an old grape, old vines, old growers and a part of Chile that suddenly has something distinctive to say. This is where I think Carlos Rojas's explanation of the three communes and six subzones becomes particularly important.
VIGNO has already established its basic identity, but the next challenge is to make Maule itself more legible. The VIGNO organisation says that, together with the University of Talca, it has studied the climatic, geological and viticultural characteristics of the various areas represented by more than 70 small vineyards contributing to VIGNO wines. That work could eventually take the project somewhere much more ambitious. Imagine a sommelier being able to see Melozal, Cauquenes, Cauquenes Sur, Sauzal, Loncomilla or Empedrado on a wine list and immediately understand that these aren't simply addresses. That is when a collective wine brand starts becoming something more powerful: a geographical language.
One grape. Many expressions.
Back in Maipo, tasting through the VIGNO wines, the most striking thing wasn't that they tasted alike. It was that they didn't. They shared a genetic and agricultural foundation, but they expressed different parts of Maule. Some were floral. Some earthy. Some muscular. Some had piercing acidity; others carried greater weight and concentration. The common denominator was not flavour. It was origin and heritage.
Pilar Miranda's explanation of VIGNO begins with the need to preserve Carignan, old vines, dry farming and the people who work them. Carlos Rojas takes the story further: Maule is not one place. It is a collection of climatic environments, with the Pacific and inland warmth creating meaningful differences in how and when Carignan ripens.
Perhaps that is the real significance of VIGNO.
It is not trying to make Maule taste like Bordeaux. It is not trying to reproduce the classification systems of Europe. It is doing something much more Chilean. It is taking a forgotten part of its own wine history and asking a simple question: What if the old vineyards were the future?
​

Siegel Wines is increasingly defined by something more interesting: place. With roots stretching back more than a century, the Siegel family has built a wine portfolio that moves from the foothills of the Andes in Alto Colchagua to the maritime influence of Leyda and the cooler, coastal reaches of Colchagua. At the centre of it all is Los Lingues, a vineyard that has become the family's principal expression of terroir. But the story of Siegel is no longer simply about Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère. It is about understanding individual sites, exploring different climates and, occasionally, taking a few risks.
A family before it was a brand
The Siegel family's Chilean story began with Alberto Siegel Lubbe, a German architect who arrived in Chile and became associated with some of Santiago's important buildings. His son, Alberto Siegel Dauelsberg, took the family in a very different direction. He developed an interest in viticulture, studied agronomy and gained experience in German wine cellars before turning his attention to Chilean vineyards. More than three decades ago, he planted the family's first vineyards in Colchagua. These would eventually form the foundation of Siegel Family Wines.
The winery's modern history dates to around 1980, while the family began bottling wines under its own name in the 1990s. What began as a traditional Chilean wine business has since evolved into a substantial family operation, with vineyards stretching across several very different terroirs.
Today, the next generation is closely involved. Alberto Siegel Prieto, leads the business, while Fabiola Calderón leads operations and winemaking. That continuity is important. Siegel is not simply a label sourcing fruit from across Chile. Its identity remains firmly connected to the vineyards the family owns and manages.

Going South: Futrono and Patagonia
In 2006, the Silva family planted vineyards in the Futrono area, close to the Andes and on a slope descending towards Lago Ranco in Chile's Austral region. At this latitude, viticulture becomes an exercise in understanding climate rather than simply managing heat.
The lake plays an important role by moderating temperature and reducing the risk of frost, while the hillside provides sunlight and drainage. Casa Silva was a pioneer in producing wines with a denomination of origin from this remote part of Chile. Today the Futrono project includes Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Riesling, alongside the limited-production Fervor del Lago Ranco sparkling wine.
For wine professionals, these wines are particularly fascinating because they challenge the conventional image of Chile as predominantly a warm-climate producer of structured reds. Lago Ranco demonstrates just how far south—and how cool—Chilean viticulture can go.
When Terroir Became a Scientific Question
Perhaps the most intellectually interesting chapter in Casa Silva's story began in 2005. The winery began a three-year Micro-Terroir research project with the University of Talca to understand why vines growing in apparently similar conditions within the same vineyard could produce grapes and wines with noticeably different characteristics. The project went down to remarkably small units: micro-parcels of just 0.1 hectares were studied, with different varieties including Carmenère, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Viognier and Petit Verdot. Through microvinification, Casa Silva could isolate and compare these small parcels and identify those with the greatest quality potential.
The work became particularly significant for Carmenère. Variations in quality and character were found in a substantial proportion of the micro-plots, leading Casa Silva to investigate whether clonal differences were contributing to what was being observed. That eventually led to a separate Genome Project, in which 72 Carmenère phenotypes from different Chilean valleys were studied. The research involved the University of Talca, Universidad Federico Santa María and Germany's Max Planck Institute.
For a variety that has become synonymous with Chile, this is more than academic curiosity. It is an attempt to understand Carmenère at a level far deeper than simply identifying it on a wine label.
The result is the Casa Silva Microterroir Carmenère, sourced from Los Lingues. It is 100% Carmenère, selected from the best plants across the studied blocks and aged for 15 months in French oak. The winery gives the wine a cellaring potential of around 15 years. For sommeliers, this is where the Casa Silva story becomes particularly compelling: the wine is not merely called Microterroir because it sounds fashionable. It is the commercial expression of a research programme designed to identify precisely which pieces of land and which plants could produce the most distinctive Carmenère.

There are few places in Chile where the influence of Bordeaux is as evident as at Los Vascos, yet there is also a growing sense that this is no longer simply a French interpretation of Chilean wine.
Located in Peralillo in the Colchagua Valley, Los Vascos became part of the Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) story in 1988, one of the first major French investments in Chilean viticulture. The estate today combines Chilean terroir and traditions with the precision and winemaking philosophy of DBR Lafite. The result is a fascinating wine estate where Cabernet Sauvignon remains central, but where vineyards, soils and increasingly distinct cuvées are beginning to speak more loudly. 
The  vineyard:
Los Vascos sits between the Andes and the Coastal Mountain Range, around 200 km south of Santiago. The property covers approximately 3,600 hectares, of which about 640 hectares are planted with vines. It sits around 150 metres above sea level and approximately 40 km from the Pacific Ocean. The geography creates a significant diurnal range, with hot, dry days and considerably cooler nights. The temperature difference can reach as much as 30°C, conditions that favour slow ripening and the retention of freshness, particularly in Cabernet Sauvignon.
The soils are equally varied. The estate has weathered granite, clay and shale, with alluvial sand and clay and a hard volcanic-ash-derived soil known as tosca in the valley floor. Higher up, the granite soils of El Mirador and Santa Lucia are particularly important for the more complex and age-worthy wines.
The vineyard itself is a mixture of generations. Some plots average around 15 years, others are 40–50 years old, while the oldest vines of the vineyard are around 60 years old. Cabernet Sauvignon dominates the estate, accounting for approximately 68% of plantings, followed by Carmenère and Syrah.

The Lafite influence
The French influence here is not simply a marketing association with Château Lafite Rothschild.
Los Vascos explicitly describes its wines as combining Chilean traditions with DBR Lafite's expertise, with an emphasis on elegance, precision and freshness. Cabernet Sauvignon is naturally central: it is both exceptionally well suited to the estate and the emblematic variety of Château Lafite Rothschild. The winemaking philosophy follows Bordeaux traditions, but the objective isn't to make a Chilean wine taste French. It is to use French experience to express what the Chilean vineyard can deliver. That distinction becomes increasingly interesting as you move up the portfolio.
Le Dix: the Lafite connection at its most classical
Le Dix is the estate's flagship wine and was first produced with the 1996 vintage, marking ten years of DBR Lafite's presence in Chile. Its name—French for ten—is therefore literal history.
The wine is built around fruit from some of Los Vascos' oldest and most prized vineyards. Cabernet Sauvignon comes from El Fraile, the historic vineyard planted more than half a century ago on sand and silt. The Syrah comes principally from El Mirador, the first vineyard planted on the estate's hillsides. The blend is selected from the best grapes of the vintage and is aged for 18 months in Bordeaux oak barrels. For a sommelier, Le Dix is perhaps the most obvious place to examine the relationship between Chilean fruit and Bordeaux methodology: concentration without sacrificing freshness, structure without excessive extraction, and oak used as part of the architecture rather than as the headline.
Cromas: looking at the hills differently
If Le Dix represents the classical side of Los Vascos, Cromas shows how the estate has evolved.
The name comes from the Greek word for colour, and the range emerged from detailed exploration of the estate's hillsides and soils. The team identified areas of ochre-coloured granite with shallow soils and good exposure. These slopes produce naturally balanced vines and fruit with greater precision and definition. The Cromas wines are aged for 12 months in barrel, and the range includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Syrah and Cabernet Franc. The Cabernet Sauvignon comes from the Santa Lucia foothills, where strong day-night temperature contrasts allow slow ripening. Both Carmenère and Syrah comes from the gentle granite slopes in the Coastal Mountain Range.

Chagual: organic, and distinctly Chilean
The estate's organic range is Los Vascos Chagual. Named after Puya chilensis, a native Chilean plant important to the coastal ecosystem, Chagual represents Los Vascos' approach to organic viticulture and biodiversity.
The Chagual Cabernet Sauvignon comes from certified organic plots in Peralillo. The Chagual Sauvignon Blanc comes from the coastal San Antonio area, where granite soils and strong Pacific influence encourage slow ripening and preserve acidity and varietal character.
The broader estate philosophy is equally interesting. Los Vascos maintains sheep, beehives, native vegetation, orchards, forests, ponds and other elements of biodiversity. Plant waste is composted, wastewater is treated through a BioFiltro system and solar thermal and photovoltaic installations contribute to its energy strategy.
The estate is certified under the Wines of Chile Sustainability Code and joined the B Corp community in 2023. This is important because the organic wines aren't being produced in isolation. They form part of a much larger attempt to treat the vineyard as an ecosystem.
Cañetén: a new chapter
Perhaps the most intriguing development is Cañetén. The Cañetén Valley sits about 40 km from the Pacific in a climatic transition zone between Colchagua Entre-Cordillera and Colchagua Costa. Mount Cañetén, rising to around 914 metres, helps intercept moisture from the Pacific, creating morning fog and low clouds before the valley warms and strong south-westerly winds arrive.
The new Cañetén wine is a premium red blend designed to express this particular mesoclimate. Grapes are hand-harvested, individual vineyard sections are vinified separately in small concrete or stainless-steel tanks, and ageing is primarily in 4,000-litre foudres to minimise the aromatic influence of oak. That is a notable departure from the more overtly Bordeaux-inspired model associated with Los Vascos. The focus is increasingly on place, freshness and texture.

 Some wineries are places you visit to taste wine. Others make you want to understand the wine, the landscape and the philosophy behind it. Montes in Apalta belongs firmly in the latter category. Set in the Apalta area of Chile's Colchagua Valley, Viña Montes combines premium winemaking with an elaborate visitor experience. Its gravity-flow winery incorporates Feng Shui principles, its vineyards extend into some of Chile's most cool sites, and its destination restaurant brings the open-fire cooking of Argentine chef Francis Mallmann into the picture. Montes was ranked No. 10 in The World's 50 Best Vineyards 2025.
Apalta and the Colchagua Story
Apalta is one of the distinctive sub-regions of Colchagua, surrounded by hills that create a sheltered environment for viticulture. It has become particularly associated with premium red wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère and Syrah. Marchigüe, also within the broader Colchagua Valley, offers a different expression, with greater influence from the coast. The distinction matters because Colchagua is not a single homogeneous terroir; changes in topography and climate create noticeably different growing conditions within the valley.
Montes has built much of its premium identity around these differences. 
A Winery Built Around Gravity and Feng Shui
The Montes winery is perhaps as interesting as the wines. It's design incorporates Feng Shui principles, with the architecture intended to create harmony between the building and its surroundings. Water, wood, earth, metal and fire are incorporated into the design. The winery's cellar also uses Gregorian chants as part of its distinctive atmosphere. More practically, the winery uses gravity-flow technology. Its design allows grapes and wine to move between stages with the assistance of gravity, reducing the need for mechanical pumping. It is an interesting example of architecture serving both a philosophical and practical purpose.
Pushing Towards the “Outer Limits”
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Montes story is that its exploration of terroir doesn't stop at Apalta. The Outer Limits range comes from vineyards in different, sometimes extreme environments. Most notably, Montes planted in Zapallar in Aconcagua Costa, a coastal area influenced strongly by the Pacific Ocean. The contrast with Apalta is striking. Montes' Outer Limits Sauvignon Blanc comes from Zapallar and is a fresh, crisp, dry, cool-climate expression, with passion fruit, lime and grapefruit notes and pronounced acidity. The Outer Limits Syrah is equally intriguing. The coastal site produces a Syrah with vibrant acidity, red-fruit character and fine tannins rather than the heavy, ripe profile often associated with warmer climates. Montes was an early pioneer in developing Zapallar as a wine-growing site. The vineyards experience strong coastal influence from the Pacific as well as the Cordillera de la Costa. The name Outer Limits therefore makes sense. These wines are an exploration of what happens when varieties are planted outside their obvious comfort zones.