From the hills of the Itata valley, Chile, we have four new wines from our friends Daniela & Pablo at Vinos Mingaco, from their 2020 vintage.
Home is 25 km inland from the Pacific Ocean on a particularly beautiful southern facing slope, surrounded by forest. Here they practise regenerative agriculture, promoting biodiversity and replanting native trees. They have a close relationship with their land, growing their own vegetables, eating only what they can grow (or occassionally catch) and living on the farm beside the vines in a home they built directly from the red clay.
With no additions, and all grapes processed traditionally, regardless of white or red (de-stemmed, macerated for about 2 weeks, fermented and aged outside during the cool Chilean Autumn and Winter) the wines are a brilliantly direct, sincere expression of Itata, and their old vines planted over granitic red clay.
We have two versions of the Muscat they farm on their own single hectare, and for the first time we also have two reds, each from small negocé parcels grown close to home.
We caught up with Daniela last week to speak about the challenges of the 2020 vintage, to talk through the new wines, and discuss exciting developments to their home and winery.
For those who might be interested to visit this part of the world and learn about Daniela & Pablo's amazing attention to detail in regenerative agriculture, the borders of Chile are now open, and they will really need help with harvest around March 2023! Please drop them a message if it's of interest, they can be reached easily via their instagram.
How was the 2020 vintage for you, harvest must have dovetailed with the beginning of the pandemic?
"We were quite lucky really, we had completed three quarters of the harvest, before Chile locked down, before the pandemic had really even taken hold. But it happened fast! On Saturday we still had a family from France, friends from nearby, a sommelier from Santiago al helping. On Sunday they all left to go home, and on Monday, they announced quarantine was going to start. We had the País vineyard remaining to pick, and none of the new volunteers could join us, so Pablo had to pretty much pick the whole thing by himself! It took him four days.
"As a year, 2020 was very dry. Winter, Spring and Summer were all dry. There were some intense frosts that affected the valley, but fortunately not our vineyards. Bud burst happened earlier than expected, and it was our first year of picking earlier, which we've done every year since.
"Traditionally the wines of Itata are higher in alcohol, and ours are still fairly high, but they'd be much much bigger if we picked when everyone else did. Pablo just tasted the grapes from the vine to sense when they're ready, and check the biodynamic calendar to choose which exact day to harvest. "
2020 - Moscatel Barrica
"In 2020, we picked and macerated all of our 50 year Moscatel together. As you know, about half of the vines have been under regenerative agriculture for 10 years, and the other half 4 or 5. From 2021 onwards we've decided to vinify each parcel separately, to really highlight the effects our agriculture has on the health of the soils, and ultimately in the wines. But that's for next year!"
_"For 2020, we de-stemmed everything, and macerated it all for 12 days outside in open lagar.The free-run juice we aged for 11 months in our open-air cellar, in 400l French barrels, and bottled via gravity with no additions."
2020 - Moscatel Flor
"From those same lagar we took the press-juice, and a little free-run, and aged it outside in tank. Unbelievably, a veil of flor formed, and it aged under flor for about a year before we bottled via gravity, with no additions. It's a special one."
2020 - Cinsault
"In 2020 we worked with two nearby growers - now we work with four - who used to sell their grapes to co-operatives, or simply got too old to work their vineyards. Pablo has basically begun farming these like we farm our own. In Chile people aren't a huge fan of renting things out - there's too much paperwork - so in lots of instances we do a half-half agreement, we prune, work the vines, farm how we like and harvest, and we take half of the fruit, and we give the owner half. It works for everyone!"
"We work just a little Cinsault, about .30 hectare, 50 years old on south-west facing slopes on red clay. Very close to us here so also just 25km from the ocean."
"We're working as traditionally as possible, every grape we treat the same regardless of red or white, so the Cinsault is de-stemmed, has an 11 day maceration outside under the shade of the oak tree, is pressed gently and ages in sixth-use American oak barrels in the open-air clay cellar. Bottled via gravity with no additions."
2020 - País
"The vineyard Pablo picked alone! These are 150 year old vines on an east-facing slope on red granitic clay. A small parcel, just .20 hectare, but more than enough for Pablo to pick mostly alone, about 1200 plants."
"Again, de-stemmed for an 11 day maceration outside, aged for a year in sixth-use American barrels in our open cellar, and bottled via gravity with no additions."
When we spoke last year, you showed me a big excavation into the clay on the farm, how's the building been going?
"Yes we have been building our wine cellar! It's about 80% complete, but we just use it anyway. It has three levels, that drop down into the next, so at the top we can harvest and ferment, the second level is where we will keep all of our ageing barrels and, Pipes, Tinajas, and the third level will be where we can bottle. Everything we did by gravity already but now it is much easier."
"We call it an earth construction, the structure is wood, the walls are made from our clay mud, and straw, and the roof is also made from clay. It's beautiful, we're very lucky to have it!"
