Winemaker Notes
País vines embody the culture, history, tradition and character of the Chilean terroir, and they are a driving force for the journey into winemaking for Roberto Henríquez.
Roberto Henríquez studied agronomy and enology at the University of Concepción. From there, he travelled and worked with winemakers in Canada, South Africa and finally in the Loire Valley with Rene Mosse. Rene had a profound effect on Roberto’s perspective on winemaking and his progression into organic and biodynamic farming.
Roberto, originally from Concepción, returned home after his time in abroad to begin making his own wine. Returning to the traditional Pipeño methods of the original winemakers of Chile felt intuitive to the winemaking style he had adopted. The rest of his story to present is pure progression to the pursuit of the purest wines in a true Chilean context.
His vineyards were personally and carefully selected. Working with long term fermage agreements, he farms all the land himself (with the help of farming animals). To the north, in Itata, he is working with a vineyard of old vine Semillon and blends that with Corinto (aka Chasselas) and Muscat d’Alejandria producing an orange style wine. A little further south, in Bío Bío, he is farming Pais, from which he makes the Pipeño and the Santa Cruz de Coya. He works with carbonic macerations and ages in old Rauli wood barrels. His wines are light-bodied, translucent, refined, and full of character.
A cool, rather wet region of southern Chile, Bio Bio is experiencing an increase in the development of quality wine production.
Sémillon has the power to create wines with considerable structure, depth and length that will improve for several decades. It is the perfect partner to the vivdly aromatic Sauvignon Blanc. Sémillon especially shines in the Bordeaux region of Sauternes, which produces some of the world’s greatest sweet wines. Somm Secret—Sémillon was so common in South Africa in the 1820s, covering 93% of the country’s vineyard area, it was simply referred to as Wyndruif, or “wine grape.”