In a nutshell / the Nitty Gritty
Garage Wine Co, 2017 Pirque Vineyard, Cabernet Franc, Alto Maipo, 🇨🇱
Taking our first look at Cabernet Franc from Chile, with an example from arguably the variety’s biggest flag-bearer Garage Wine Co, run by husband and wife team Derek Mossmann Knapp and Pilar Miranda.
Cabernet Franc is the 15th most planted grape in the country, but it has made great progress in the last two decades (check out the video for the stat on plantings!! 🤓).
The Pirque Vineyard is one of two single-vineyard Cabernet Francs Garage Wine Co makes. This is coming from a 1ha parcel of vines in the Alto Maipo, a high altitude sub-region in the foothills of the Andes in the eastern part of the Maipo Valley, which is part of Chile’s Central Valley.
A fine intro to Garage Wine Co, and I hope to see more single-varietal Cab Francs coming out of Chile in the future!
If you’ve had a Chilean Cabernet Franc, let me know who made it and what you thought of it in the comments!
Key facts below ⬇️:
Producer: Garage Wine Co
Region: Central Valley
Sub-region: Alto Maipo (Pirque)
Altitude: 600m
Soils: alluvial clay-loam with river stones/pebbles starting 50-90cm deep
Alc: 14%
Vinurile de la Garage Wine Co din Chile au fost cadoul pe care mi l-am făcut de Crăciun! Au ajuns, după câteva aventuri, în 24 Decembrie la prânz. Vinuri cu personalitate puternică făcute cu pasiune de Derek Mossman. Eleganță, tensiune, aciditate, echilibru, 13 la sută alcool, vii vechi de 120 ani, cabernet franc, drojdii sălbatice, decantare obligatorie câteva ore. Efectiv vibrează vinurile astea atâta tensiune au! Cu totul altceva decât știam despre vinurile din Chile! Vinul de față are 94 Parker! Avem și cu 98/99 Parker la prețuri mai mult decât decente.
#gwcocover
#garagewineco
#winepointromania
Tats now available with purchase of library vintages #gwcotat #inkedtastingnotes cheers @extra_brut_ #gwcocover
We would like to share some news from Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate in the recent article by Luis Gutierrez.
Beyond the joy and contentment for Pilar, Alvaro and I (and the whole Garage team), without doubt this is a broader recognition for the old vines of the Maule and Itata and for the farmers who have been the stewards of these vineyards and this viticulture for generations, and for wine made small on purpose— more hand and land, less brand.
More than our having achieved something, (make no mistake Luis we are thrilled!) let this be a call for many to do more to revive and make thrive important pieces of the mosaic that is Chilean wine— and share them with the world. @luisgutierrezsd @wine_advocate Do find and read the article. Cheers to @retadechile @vinosbaettig @pedroparraterroir also pictured… … and @estanis07 for the images #gwcocover
Don Clorindo usted es un 7 un verdadera escuela de poda / Don Clorindo you are indeed a dude. Recovery from a fall you say “ well my ribs hurt Derek, but they would be hurting more if I stayed at home “. #gwcocover
Jamie Goode tastes Isidore. Cheers Jamie ! @drjamiegoode
(Canadians - this wine just selected for LCBO and already available in BC) #gwcocover
Someone said icon and Pilar thought they said iconic and thought of Einstein and . . . #gwcocover
Cover this month of La CAV / Tremenda portada de @la.cav @anam_barahona @vignadores_de_carignan #gwcocover
Cata intensa #gwcocosecha2018 #gwcocosecha2019
Terrific tasting #gwcovintage2018 #gwcovintage2019 #gwcocover
It is coming up to 20 yrs ago we began and 100 lots later we are beginning to find our stride. Soon to be released Cab Franc Lot 100 with a host of other 2018’s #gwcocover
Pruning / poda in full swing with some changes this year… Poda / pruning ya avanzando con unos cambios claves … #gwcocover
Un saludo este 1 de mayo a la gente — el motor de Garage y la razón que podemos hacer vinos lleno de los sabores del secano. Happy May Day Labour day everyone and special salute to the hands and souls that make Garage possible. Early mornings long days— we only wish we could mark of end harvest with a bash and something on a spit like a normal year ... #gwcocover
My youngest cooked up a storm last night — and his dad forgot to get a pic of his Rissotto de funghi porcini #gwcocover
Easter duck - well, we couldn’t very well have rabbit could we... #gwcocover
Don Osvaldo on the truck tucking the fruit in for the trip back to the bodega— Rocket Scientist Farmer from Sauzal #gcwoharvest2021 #gwcocover
País también #gwcocover #gwcorevival
Holy quirks quarks and quartz Batman #gwcocover
Thibault — my shadow, fixer and transporter for harvest 2021– spitting image @mr.jason.statham or what? #gwcocover
Vineyard porn #gwcocover
2021 meet 2020 credit @thibaultragot_ my shadow and fixer this harvest — ah y Transporter too given he looks like Jason Stathom 😉 #gwcocover
Coming soon II #gwcocover
Back at it early this morning (Sauzal is g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s) Purapel the surprise but still lots to come — goings on in Washington help raise spirits today #gwcocover
Hope to get @matt.wilson.gc out to film the what harvest and threshing again this year. #mauleadicto #maulevalley #regiondelmaule @crdpmaule #gwcocover
Este sábado a las 8 pm (hora Chilensis) this Sat 8 pm conversation and wines in Spanish #gwcocover
We are very content to share that we have been nominated for @wineenthusiast Wine Star Awards: New World Winery of the Year
A huge thank-you to our customers around the world who have put up with us all these years making small lots of wines with tough to pronounce names, and to the chefs who took interest in the flavours of the Secano Interior, and to the Somms who took people out of their comfort zone to try old vine Maule & Itata.
To our neighbours friends and farmers who have worked codo-a-codo to allow us nay encouraged us to do what makes us happy.
We are humbled honoured and gobstopped to have worked on this revival with you : Cristian & Ester, Nivaldo & Otelia. Javier & Jose, Jolo & Robinson, Lucho & Yañez, Don Franco y Don Hugo, Don Miguel & Juvenal, Colarindo & José, Alvaro & Raul, Señora Teresa Luz y Veronica, Julio, Luchito, Caco, Mr King, Matt, Alejandro & Alex, Finlay & Ethan, Luis our bottle painter … … our partners in Vigno @vignadoresdecarignan and in MoVI @movi … and congratulations to fellow nominees!
@wineenthusiast #winestarawards
Estamos muy contentos de compartir que hemos sido nominados para los premios @wineenthusiast Wine Star Awards: New World Winery of the Year
Un enorme agradecimiento a nuestros clientes de todo el mundo que nos han aguantado todos estos años elaborando pequeños lotes de vinos con nombres difíciles de recordar, y a los chefs que se interesaron por los sabores del Secano Interior y de los Somms quienes ayudaron a sacar a la gente de su ‘zona de confort’ para probar la viña vieja de Maule e Itata.
A nuestros vecinos, amigos y viñateros que han trabajado codo-a-codo para permitirnos y animarnos a hacer lo que nos hace felices. Nos sentimos honrados de haber trabajado para revivir el Secano Interior con ustedes: Cristian & Ester, Nivaldo & Otelia. Javier & Jose, Jolo & Robinson, Lucho & Yañez, Don Franco y Don Hugo, Don Miguel & Juvenal, Colarindo & José, Alvaro & Raul, Señora Teresa Luz y Veronica, Julio, Luchito, Caco, Mr King, Matt, Alejandro & Alex, Finlay & Ethan, Luis … … nuestros socios en Vigno @vignadoresdecarignan y en MoVI @movichile ! Y felicidades a los otros nominados #gwcocover
Abracadabra @carter5myles #gwcocover
Caption contest? #gwcocover
Itata #gwcocover
@fernandomoramw antes que fue En Vivo antes cuando podría viajar a vendimiar / Fernando Mora MW before he went Live back when he and many of us travelled to the harvest in the opposite hemisphere #gwcocover
Trade tasting in Providencia opened up to public afterward - great mid-summer’s wine night #gwcocover
The blend #gwcogente #gwcocover
Don’t let Pilar have it all. Get your case mixed case before Scrooge sees the real spirit of Christmas and buys them all! Https://garagewineco.cl/products/v12/ is a good place to start. #gwcogente #gwcocover
Up close and in camera lenta #gwcocover
Los últimos pisoneos #gwcocover
Welcome to Garage Wine Co. wherever you are — español aquí.
Garage Wine began quite literally in Pilar and Derek’s Garage. After half a dozen vintages making wine for an informal market of family and friends, it began exporting to UK & Denmark in 2006
The Parcels
GWCo makes wines from a series of individual parcels, small lots / bottlings of 8 -22 barrels that include a series of dry-farmed field-blends of Carignan, Garnacha, Monastrell, País, Cinsault and Cab Franc grown on pre-phylloxera rootstock with small farmers in the Maule and Itata. Each wine is from a 1-2 hectare parcel in a different place: Bagual, Caliboro, Coelemu, Guarilihue, Loncomilla, Portezuelo, Puico, Ranquil, Sauzal, Truquilemu…
Over the years working in the community we have raised a veritable posse of vineyard hands whose skills are working the vineyards the old way / the traditional way– originario. We cultivate vineyards with small vigneron partners who work with horse and plough as his family has done for generations. Some of the parcels, where the next generation moved to the city, we have opted to rent long-term creating more work for the local hands who do want to stay on the farm.
The vineyards are on the old Coastal Range of mountains closer to the Pacific — Chile’s other mountains. These are older and cooled more slowly so they have granitic soils, many with intrusions and cracks for roots to get deep down into. When GWCo. speaks of the provenance of our wines however we mean more than just the geology of the terroir. This is a good start, but we are convinced the farming practices that have evolved over generations have as much to do with the wines’ personalities as the soils. The regeneration of the vineyards long since neglected depends upon this farming.
GWCo. also makes an old-vine Cab Franc (old bush head vines) and a Cab Sauv blend in the Maule as well as two Cabs mountain-grown in the Maipo where the firm began in 2003.
All the wines are made by hand with native yeasts in small tanks, punched down manually and pressed out in a small basket press. GWCo is still very much a DIY operation and we still tow much of the crop back to the winery in trailers behind trusty pickup trucks 2,ooo kilos at a time.
Single Ferment Series Wines
Pais & Cinsault in the Secano Interior, the cradle of the original Chilean viticulture, have been forever the victim of commodity pricing. When GWCo saw it’s Carignan growers being paid paltry sums for their other fruit we began acquiring small bits from various farmers to experiment. From the beginning, we paid bonafide prices that would allow for the traditional field works to cultivate the soil properly to continue into the future. Commercial bottlings of “Single Ferments” began with serendipity when we simply could not resist not one but three small bits of Cinsault. And then promptly plain ran out of tanks to ferment them in. With nowhere to put all three, we simply stacked the second bit of newly harvested fruit on top of the first already fermenting—and then the third on top of both, creating one single fermentation from the fruit of three farms. We adopted the same technique with Pais and subsequently named both wines: Single Ferment Series.
The Nitty Gritty
In these times it is important to stand for what you believe in, and more importantly to build the kind of business you believe in. At Garage Wine Co. we revive old vineyards in marginalized Chilean communities to make coveted wines. We’ve positioned thesewinesin a dozen established fine wine markets around the world and we grow. The wines are not made to be expensive per se, but they are found on the higher shelves– they need to command a price that allows for proper farming. What we have discovered is that the long-term practices of regenerative farming not only make for better fruit and thus more flavourful wine, but that such a business can become a force for financial, community and environmental good.
The Baby and the Bathwater
As South American wine exports have boomed over the last quarter-century, it has grown increasingly difficult for small farmers to sell their old-vine grapes at a proper price – a price that can consistently sustain family and community. Mainstream buyers want more for less and they would have the growers modernise. The modern wine business calls for spraying instead of cultivating, scaling instead of focusing, and above all: reducing the cost of labor. But with the old vineyards, the labor is precisely where one finds the wisdom of farming passed down through the ages. Throwing that away would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Regenerative Farming
Farming in the Secano Interior, the Maule and Itata valleys of Southern Chile, has been a way of life since Colonial times. Not just vineyards, but mixed farming of heritage seed wheat, free-range livestock and local market produce. Small-scale farms use dry-farming methods: turning over the earth to capture scarce seasonal rainwater, and nutrients from the clever use of seasonal cover-crops that in turn help sequester carbon from the air, and the use of horses to get into rows where tractors can’t reach.
This is where GWCo. works; too far from the comfort zone of those in the mainstream. These vineyards were neglected and relegated to bulk wine for decades because the booming market wanted branded varietals that didn’t command a price to support the work.
For more than a decade GWCo. has worked these old vines, there has been a marked improvement both in vineyard health and quality of the fruit produced.
The marrying of the fieldcraft of these small-scale farmers with the lens of modern science and GWCo’s mindful winemaking took a decade, but the marriage has proven successful not just for GWCo, but also for the farmers, our suppliers and customers alike. Over the past few years, we have begun to rent and in some cases acquire the property underneath the old vines. Today one-third of our production is worked our way with our own people.
Necessity was the mother of sustainability
Sustainability for us was never about seals and certifications. We became sustainable just trying to survive being small in an industry geared to the big. Vintage after vintage we made our way through a series of necessary work-arounds, finding a way forward, that only later would be seen to be sustainable.
Recycled bottles – Because our production runs were small we were challenged when it came to dry-goods. When bottle makers refused to deliver to us, we found a local bottle recycler who became a trusted partner. This small business employs workers in a rural part of the country where stable and safe work is hard to find. What we learned is that when bottles are manufactured they have a limited shelf-life on the factory patio—a best before date if you will. Today we buy these bottles and wash them before use. This is glass that would otherwise have been smashed and melted and remade—without ever having been used. What is the carbon footprint of a bottle manufactured twice to be used once?
Labels & Packaging– We learned to paint / silk-screen bottles because our bottlings were so small that the label printers did not want to work with us. The industry was geared to long print runs and said there was no money in printing 120
0 labels. So we built a custom machine and found experienced hands with silk-screening. Luis, our bottle painter, has been painting bottles for us for 11 years now. (Chile’s first hotel built entirely of recycled materials: The WineBox, has adapted out bottles for their lamps today.)
What’s with the wax? Regular capsules were also sold with a minimum far larger than our needs, so we found a school supply firm that would make us food-safe wax for seals from crayon wax.
All of these workarounds, bothers and hassles at the time led to a positive and durable differentiation in packaging. One that we have continued to work with earth-friendly inks for silk screening, and recycled materials for cases.
Fermentation tanks
Unable to buy new tanks– designed to make mainstream wines, large, expensive and inflexible in their design, we took the leftover cuttings and scraps of a large stainless manufacturer and pieced together Lagars (traditional word for open tanks). We did it for far less money and the upcycling created opportunities for local welding shops.
Fruit: Years ago we bought from mainstream growers. When we made a crackerjack wine, the grower would use the prestige with critics to sell our fruit to someone bigger / better known leaving us without said fruit and without continuity in our portfolio. After two or three experiences such as this, frustrated, we went South to the Secano to work with growers unknown, unpolished, and disconnected from the mainstream. Working closely with small growers far from the beaten path, we found diamonds in the rough. When the polishing was done we had forged a bond with the growers—partnerships that we have continued to build upon with others in the neighborhood.
Diverse leadership
Let’s face it, the wine business can be conservative, clubby and patriarchic. Having a female lead our work helps us work with our growers and suppliers on a different footing. We also like to mix scientists with field hands. Instead of contracting the cheapest bused-in labour, we keep it local where there are more experienced hands. Mercenary piece work doesn’t work — proper sourcing does. It’s a mouthful, but in a phrase: the difference created by the discretionary effort released when you work in good faith with local farmhands is so much more than the savings that might be achieved from cost-cutting, that there’s no comparing the two. We have never looked back.