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Erasmo

by Amanda Barnes
written by Amanda Barnes

Erasmo winery (also known as Viña La Reserva de Caliboro) is a boutique organic production in Maule owned by Italian wine royalty, Count Francisco Marone Cinzano (owner of Col d’Orcia in Tuscany). In 2005 the Count purchased a rundown historic winery in Maule and began red wines in the region.

Today the Viña La Reserva de Caliboro produces a handful of different red blends from Mediterranean, Bordeaux and native varieties as well as a rare late harvest wine made of Torontel. You can visit Erasmo winery for a tasting and lunch (reservations only).

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Bouchon winery in Chile wine guide, Bouchon Family Wines in Maule
Featured WineriesFeatured ChileHistoricFamilyMaule WineriesHotel Winery

Bouchon Family Wines

by Amanda Barnes
written by Amanda Barnes

One of the most forward-thinking and exciting producers in Maule today, Bouchon Family Wines is a visionary producer run by the second-generation of the Bouchon family. The family has three of their own vineyard estates in Maule and they also work with growers and farmers around Maule and beyond. Labels include J Bouchon, Mingre, Las Mercedes, Granito and País Salvaje.

 

About Bouchon Family Wines

The history of Bouchon Family Wines actually starts much earlier than the foundation of the modern winery in Maule in 1977. “In 1877 my great-grandfather Emile Bouchon, a winemaker, came from St Émilion to Chile,” explains Julio Bouchon Junior. “He started working in a winery just outside of Santiago, before going to work in Colchagua, where he helped establish another winery. The story of Bouchon wines in Maule, though, starts with my father, Julio Bouchon Senior, who studied a winemaking degree in Bordeaux and came back with the idea of starting a premium winery in Maule. He bought our family estate in Mingre in 1977.”

With over 160 hectares planted at three different sites in Maule today, the family winery is firmly established in the heart of Maule and is one of the few family wineries left there that is open to tourism and making premium estate wines. Part of their focus is on old vines and dry-farming in the Secano Interior.

“I think my father was a visionary at the time, because he didn’t know much about the concept of dry farming when he purchased the estate,” explains Julio Jr, “but he was clear about the quality of low yields and the concept of having old vines on granite soil.”

Julio Bouchon Sr, Maria Bouchon, Juan Bouchon, Julio Bouchon Jr: Bouchon Family Wines

This old vine and dry-farming concept is something that the winery embraces firmly today, and the fourth-generation — brothers Julio and Juan, and their sister Maria — have championed a revival of old-vine País and Sémillon wines, as well as continuing to produce the dry-farmed Bordeaux varieties that their father planted. 

Today Bouchon Family Wines includes a range of wine brands and diverse portfolio of wines from Maule, and some from further afield, and the winery is open for visits, tastings and has a boutique wine hotel amongst the vines.

 

About the Vineyards

Vineyards of Bouchon Family Wines including the granite rocks

 

MINGRE VINEYARD, 50 hectares

The original family estate, the Mingre vineyard surrounds the Bouchon winery and is approximately 45 km from the ocean and at an altitude of 192 m.a.s.l. The estate has a combination of dry-farmed vines and about half the estate (mainly their Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux varieties) require some irrigation. The temperate Mediterranean climate in combination with ancient granitic soils has led them to focus mainly on red wine production in the Mingre region. The vineyard has a combination of Bordeaux varieties, Mediterranean varieties, old País vines and Chardonnay.

 

BATUCO VINEYARD, 22 hectares

This coastal estate is just over 25 km from the ocean and has much cooler, maritime influences in combination with dry, sunny days. This is where Bouchon’s renowned old-vine Sémillon (Granito Semillon) comes from and it is also where they grow most of their Sauvignon Blanc and some Chardonnay. It is a dry-farmed vineyard with granite-based soils with sand and silt, and some of the vines are over 80 years old.

 

SANTA ROSA VINEYARD, 90 hectares

The oldest plantations from their Santa Rosa estate date back to the 1950s, and there is a combination of mainly Bordeaux varieties planted here. The estate is much closer to the Maule river and the soils are alluvial in origin with a clay texture with plenty of pebbles and round rocks. The warm, Mediterranean climate allows for full and healthy ripening of a wide range of grape varieties, and the vineyard has drip irrigation installed for dry years.

Bouchon Family wines in Maule, guide to wineries in Maule and wineries in Chile

 

BEYOND

Some of the lines produced by Bouchon work with different growers beyond the family estates, and Julio Bouchon Jr and Christian Sepúlveda are currently developing a special line of wines that celebrates the different growers they work with and guarantees a fair price for their grapes.

 

About Bouchon Wines

Bouchon Family Wines, and the Bouchon family, have several different lines of wines which are made in the winery at the Mingre estate.

Bouchon Family Wines, guide to the Bouchon wines and winery in Maule Chile

 

J BOUCHON WINES

This is the family line of wines that all come from their Maule estate vineyards and was first established by Julio Bouchon Senior. The top wine in J Bouchon is Mingre, a deeply coloured and rich blend from some of their oldest vines of Carmenère, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. The exciting duo of Granito wines are the other icons of the winery, made from old-vine Sémillon and from a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère grown on their most granitic soils. These are wines with energy, verve and tension.

The Block Series is a single plot selection of single variety wines that have been defined for their specific characteristics. Each wine in the series is designed to show the variety in its optimum Maule expression. The Reserva line includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carmenère, Malbec, a Carmenère-Syrah blend, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and a rosé and is for easy-drinking everyday wines, while their Bouchon Extra Brut is a sparkling wine from Cinsault and Pais. Canto Sur is a juicy Mediterranean-style blend of Carménère, Carignan and País; while Canto Norte is a Bordeaux-style blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Both offer exceptional value and a different side of the coin to Maule blends.

Within the J Bouchon family, Vigno is a special edition of old-vine Carignan which they purchase from a grower in southern Maule, from very old, dry-farmed vines. This racy and floral wine is a delightful addition to the Vigno association.

LAS MERCEDES

Las Mercedes is an innovative line of wines which are the passion project of brother Julio and Juan, who indulge their inner winemakers with playful and adventurous wine styles that are helping to redefine the wines coming from Maule.

An exciting range of wines which includes a skin-contact Sémillon, which spends 12 months on its skins in a large clay amphora, and a Remix red blend of Mediterranean varieties, which spends a year in foudre. The varietal line, Singular, is focused on more extreme expressions of single varieties, and the Singular Sémillon is particularly mouthwatering.

GLUP & LONGAVI WINES

Although technically not part of the stable of Bouchon Family Wines, this is one of Julio Bouchon Jr’s adventures. This time with his winemaker friend from South Africa, David Nieuwoudt. What started with an intense coastal Sauvignon Blanc from Leyda, now also embraces a rich Cabernet Sauvignon from Maipo, a red blend from Maule (the icon of the range, Mabo), and a handful of old-vine wines that come under the cheery label of Glup! And glup you will… the juicy Cinsault from Itata, fine and spicy País from Bío Bío and mouthwatering Chenin Blanc from Colchagua are wines that will disappear within moments of opening.

PAÍS SALVAJE

When the former winemaker Felipe Ramírez and Julio Bouchon Jr decided to make a wine from some wild vines of País that were growing in a tree on their estate, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. Their first vintage in 2015, which they decided to harvest by hand (there’s no option when you have to climb ladders up a tree!), destem using a traditional zaranda and ferment with native yeasts, was a huge hit and has been sold out on allocation ever since.

Today the portfolio also includes a white País Salvaje and a País Viejo, which also celebrate the unique character and easy-drinking nature of Chile’s most historic grape.

Pais Salvaje, wild pais from the vineyards

Interestingly, Bouchon Family Wines are now planting new vines of País, perhaps one of the only wineries to be doing some in Chile. “We feel like have to get to know young País vines, in order to really understand our old País vines,” explains Julio Bouchon Jr. “We want to get to know the variety throughout its lifespan to be able to produce the most authentic País wines we can.”

MORE INFORMATION ON PAIS SALVAJE

 

CONVENTO VIEJO

Convento Viejo is a reserve line of wines which includes four single varietal wines, made from their estate in Maule. It consists of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, these being the varieties that Julio Bouchon Senior first brought to his Maule estate when he grafted vines onto the old Pais vines in the late 70s.

 

About the Winemaker: Christian Sepúlveda

Christian Sepulveda winemaker at Bouchon Family WinesWhile Julio Bouchon Senior and Julio Bouchon Junior both continue to get involved in the winemaking at Bouchon Family Wines, the Head Winemaker is one of Chile’s most promising winemakers of this generation — Christian Sepúlveda. 

Following several years specialising in the cool climate coastal wine region of Limarí with Tabalí winery, and vintages at Comte Armand in Burgundy and Felton Road Wines in New Zealand, Christian joined Bouchon Family Wines in 2015.

He is particularly interested in making wines with a focus on micro-terroir and minimum intervention, as well as working closely with growers and in the vineyards.

 

Visiting Bouchon Family Wines & Casa Bouchon

Bouchon winery is available to visit for wine tastings and tours of the vineyard and cellar every day of the week, with previous reservation. There are two types of tours available: the Mingre Tour, which includes a vineyard tour, visit to the cellar, and a wine tasting of the reserve line wines paired with Chilean light bites; or the Discovery Tour, which also includes a vineyard and cellar tour, and a shorter wine tasting with varietal wines.

Bouchon winery hotel, Casa Bouchon, in the vineyards of Maule. Where to stay in Maule.

To get a feel for Maule and Chile’s Secano Interior, you really ought to stay the night — and fortunately, the boutique wine hotel Casa Bouchon is just the ticket! Located in the beautiful old estancia home, which is over 150 years old, there are five double rooms available, each with modern comforts and traditional hacienda-style design. Thick adobe walls keep temperatures cool and peacefully silent, and the 15-foot high ceiling gives you ample space and light. 

At Casa Bouchon, guests are treated to full board with breakfast, lunch and dinner coming from the home kitchen serving typical Chilean cuisine. There is also an honesty bar, plus bikes, horseback riding and plenty of excellent hiking options in the area. The highlight of any stay at Casa Bouchon though is enjoying the open-air swimming pool by day and the massive hot tub by night, which is an upcycled old wine barrel! Ideal to enjoy with a glass of wine in hand while watching the multitude of stars come out.

Reserve your tour or overnight stay by email: [email protected] or call +56 9 7477 4878.

South America Wine Guide videos from Bouchon & Maule

Recorded in 2015, following the first vintage of Pais Salvaje (thankfully our sound quality has somewhat improved since then… )

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Vigno and Carignan in Chile
Chile FeaturesChile Wine GuideWineMauleItata

A guide to Chilean Carignan

by Amanda Barnes
written by Amanda Barnes

Chilean Carignan may be an old vine variety, but it is relatively new to the wine lists of Chile. Hailing from the south, it was planted extensively in Maule and surrounding regions in order to provide a bit of backbone to the ubiquitously found Pais (Criolla or Mission) grape variety.

As Maule went out of fashion as a wine region in the late 1900s, the Carignan vines lay almost unnoticed and were treated as cheap bulk wine (along with the Pais vines) and often torn out for more profitable plants – like pine trees.

Those that survived though, are experiencing a renaissance. Largely driven by the VIGNO movement, Chilean Carignan wines are having a comeback and the old vines (40+ years old) provide exceptional quality grapes that have both a refreshing acidity as well as a good tannin structure.

In the aromatics and flavours expect to find bright red fruits, with wild floral and herbal notes often underpinned by more rustic earthy notes.

The age of the vines and their balancing effect on the fruit is important in terms of taming the rustic character of Carignan. The deep root systems also mean that many of the Carignan vineyards don’t need any irrigation, they can be dry harvested (secano in Spanish).

 

Learn more about Carignan over on 80 Harvests where we interviewed and profiled several producers in Maule:

 

 

 

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Chile FeaturesFeaturesBy RegionWine

A Count in Maule: Interview with Count Francesco Marone Cinzano

by Amanda Barnes
written by Amanda Barnes

Chile is an exciting wine country not only because of what the land itself holds, but also for the sorts of people its land attracts. One such sort of person is an Italian count. Count Francesco Marone Cinzano came to Chile over 20 years ago in search of creating his own wine project to add to the wine legacy of his family in Italy.

So why Chile?

“When I was looking for a place to start a new venture,” explains Francesco, “Chile had the most opportunity and potential for growth – and it had winemaking history! All the elements were right. The potential to me was apparent.”

The Count on his estate in Italy
The Count on his estate in Italy

Starting anew in South America can’t have been an easy decision considering the great weight he must have felt from his family legacy. Francesco’s ancestors have been making wine since the 16th century, and were the driving force behind making Asti sparkling wine, Cinzano vermouth and now they own one of the biggest Brunello estates – Col D’Orcia. It would be a fair assumption to say that the world was the Count’s oyster when it came to selecting where to plant his own roots, and it was Chile that caught his eye – and in particular Maule.

“At the beginning of the conquistadores they chose Maule and Itata as the place that was most suitable for dwelling – there was sufficient rainfall to sustain life,” he explains. “Then I discovered the best kept secret of Chile: 50% of the wine grapes are in Maule!”

Maule may well be the unsung hero of Chilean wine production, as the largest growing region in Chile albeit with lesser recognition than some of its more headline-hogging coastal and mountain neighbours. Although it was not only the numbers that convinced Francesco, but the conditions: dry and arid, a Mediterranean climate very similar to the south of Italy and the south of Greece. It was a climate he was all too familiar with, and now he just needed to find the right place. “I was lucky enough to find a place that had already be producing. I found an old colonial cellar made of adobe, and this beautiful alluvial terrace on the banks of the Maule river.”

Maule
The place he describes is his estate, Caliboro, where he makes his boutique collection of wines. While the land and the place felt right, something was amiss.

“I realised there was a poverty of genetic material in Chile,” he recounts, “and so I decided to specialise in that. I selected modern material to bring to Chile. When I arrived to Chile it was still all planted with pre-phylloxera material!”

He set out to bring the best clone selections from Europe in order to plant his vineyards. While bringing new rootstock is nothing new for Chile, the fashion in which the Count did was quite unparalleled. You get the feeling that this is not a man who does things by halves, and by halves he did not when he brought a record breaking 350,000 cuttings to Chile – the largest importation in Chile’s 500 year viticulture history, and never to be repeated again since SAG (the national agriculture body) put a prohibition on it for future winemakers.

That wealth of rootstock though is now shared with other producers as Caliboro has become a vine nursery, supplying all sorts of varieties to different producers throughout the country.

What was it that he brought to Chile? Many of the varieties in which he makes wine under the Erasmo label – Alicante, Mourvedre, Garnacha and Barbera to name a few.

“The real opportunity in Chile continues to be the discovery of new varieties. There’s a great wealth of places to be discovered with great micro climates, and micro valleys. There’s a huge potential with the combination of these elements.”

His wines reflect this diverse potential. Take his Barbera-Grenache as an example. “It is revolutionary. It’s blend that has never been attempted before not even by Australians! It’s a very modern wine, for people who want fresh fruit and easy drinking wines. Unpretentious – just pleasantness and drinkability.”

But more serious wines are also on the table. His Erasmo blend uses the classic Bordeaux varieties to make a rich, yet balanced, red blend capable of sitting alongside other great blends from around the world.

The only exception to his imported vines, was the discovery of an old lot of goblet-trained Moscatel in Maule which he uses now to make a dessert wine after dehydrating the grapes for three months after harvesting.

Erasmo grapes “When I found these old head-trained vineyards, I saw it was a patrimony to humanity. This is part of the history of winemaking here.”

The richness of Chile’s history is something else that attracted him, and also urged him to try and pull Chile forward in some aspects. “It was bridging this 19th century Chile with the 20th, or 21st, century – that was what really motivated me. You must enjoy the new ways, but not lose the goodness of old ways.”

Part of bridging this gap was to continue to support the locals in Maule by buying all their produce – from raising the local turkeys to growing vegetables. The count lived in Chile for ten years between 1995 and 2005 to give legs to the estate, and during that time he tried to rejuvenate the local produce grown in the area.

Chile he feels can deliver on many levels, and should not be controlled or hemmed in by any regulation. When the Chilean Minister of Culture asked him how they should develop the appellation system in Chile and what rules should be brought in, the count’s response was point blank: “‘None!’, I said. Allow the private sector to decide, and don’t try and develop the same denominations and appellations as the Old World. The denominations in Italy have been inflated. People are just not interested. They aren’t attentive to big long explanations. There’s plenty of room for private sector groupings. MOVI and VIGNO came at the right moment.”

While he is happy to break the rules in Chile, there are some rules that he feels shouldn’t be broken. “You can’t make good Pinot Noir in Chile – only France, and you can’t make good Sangiovese here – only in Italy.”

erasmo wineIt is perhaps not surprising he has such a strong inclination towards how Sangiovese should and shouldn’t be treated. In his own winery in Italy, he is a conformist by all means. “In Italy I have earned myself the image of a keeper of the faith,” he speaks of the Super Tuscan scandal in which he came out condemning the addition of other varieties to the local Sangiovese wine. “So it is important that I confirm and honour this tradition there.”

“But here…” he tells me over a long lunch in Santiago, “I can do anything!”

The freedom that Chile affords is an emotion shared by many settlers in the country – and something that gives winemakers leeway to experiment, making it the exciting producing country it is today.

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