A Los Viñateros Bravos, Pipeño Blanco

About Producer: 

To the brave vignerons, the courage, the patience and the love to keep over generations these old vines alive. This is a homage to them for their hard work and constancy. These wines are made with the oldest grapes in the ITATA Hills the PAIS, with the aim to show the great differences in the Terroir of the area. We have the PAIS VOLCANICO and the PAIS GRANITICO, the same work has been done with CINSAULT, VOLCANICO and GRANITICO, and of course also exploring into the more traditional way of making wine in the ITATA the PIPEÑO, with our PIPEÑO BLANCO. The aim is to produce wines with character, fresh with layers, that speak about hills, breeze and dry lands, that they shout out loud ITATA !!!. We work here with our BRAVE friends to do wines made by hand only with grapes!

Region:

Itata Valley is a wine region in the southern end of Chile's long, thin wine producing zone. This historical, cool-climate region is dominated by plantings of Carignan, Muscat of Alexandria and Pais (AKA Mission, aimed more at domestic consumption), although producers are beginning to plant more modern grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The high-altitude Coastal Range, which brings moderated weather conditions to many vineyards further north, peters out as it reaches the port city of Concepcion, leaving Itata relatively exposed. This means that weather patterns moving from the Pacific Ocean to the Andes are unhindered, resulting in higher rainfall and cloud cover. But the vineyards in the valley still enjoy a good amount of Chile's intense sunlight – the name of the town of Chillán in the region means "the place where the sun is" in the local Mapuche language.

Viticulture:

Organic viticulture, old bush vines unirrigated, impossible to work with tractors thus all the work is

manually done or with horses. Mild temperatures in summer. Max between 22 to 28oC. Influence of the Pacific Ocean on the Itata River. Cold nights of around 15 C. Fresh sea breeze, and enough rain to grow vines without the need of supplementary irrigation. Marginal granitic soils, very sandy with large quartz deposits.

Vinification:

• Manual harvested

• Destemmed grape bunches

• All varieties co-fermented for six months on skins in tank

• Indigenous yeast used for fermentation

• Ambient ferment

• Nature of maturation – cement tank

• Malolactic fermentation 

• Coarse filtration before bottling

• No Fining

• 25ppm sulphur added prior to bottling