VIGNO: One Grape, Many Maule

(L to R) Pilar Miranda, Carlos Rojas, Ajit Balgi

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?
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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?
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