Casablanca Valley Vineyards:
Exploring one of Chile's fastest growing exports
By: Casey Voyles
Photos: Jonathan Norris
Casablanca Valley is known for its white wines but some red variations are brought from the south for tastings and to sell at the winery.
Started in 1993, Casas del Bosque is one of the family owned boutique wineries in the Casablanca Valley. Diego Salazar del Rio, a manager at Casas del Bosque, says the owner Juan Cuneo comes by every weekend. Cuneo even keep his personal wine collection in the tasting room.
“We have such a young team and it’s such a family atmosphere, I love my job,” Salazar del Rio said.
Mackarena Nadea, from Vina del Mar, says that on a slow day Casas del Bosque sees 30 to 40 people per day, but the number climbs to 300 to 400 people a day, depending on the season. On average the winery sees about 25,000 visitors a year.
Casas del Bosque specializes in white wines such as Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc but also grows Syrah and Pinot Noir red vines. The valley is ideal for growing white wines because of its location. Early mornings are cool but the fog helps to regulate the temperature through the day so that the grapes don’t get warm too quickly, which would cause them to be too acidic.
Carménère and Cabernet Sauvignon can be purchased in at the winery but come from the Rapel and Maipo Valleys in the south.
A selection of wines avaiable at Casas del Bosque's store.
March through May is harvest time at Casas del Bosque where they hire around 300 women to hand pick the grapes from the vines.
“Women are gentler with the grapes,” Salazar del Rio said.
Casas del Bosque stretches for 2,000 acres but thankfully for the grape harvesters only 10 percent, or 200 acres, are used at a time.
Once the grapes are picked they are put into the state of the art stainless steel tanks to begin the fermentation process.
Next, the wines are aged in French white oak barrels in the climate controlled cellar. Different variations of wines and qualities demand a variation of time in the cellar for example, chardonnay needs about 11 months, syrah needs around 12 months and the award winning sauvignon blanc needs only a minimum of 2 months.
Casas del Bosque uses the oak barrels 4 times then resells them to distilleries to make whiskey or pisco.
Casas del Bosque wine makers fill the oak barrels before they are placed in the dark, cool cellar to further process.
“Most Chileans don’t drink wine until they’re 30. Before that it’s all pisco,” Salazar del Rio says.
When the wine is ready to bottle, the vineyard’s machinery can rinse, dry, fill and label the bottle in a matter of seconds, equalling about 2,500 bottles per hour. Casas del Bosque wine can only be found in the on-site store and in local venues such as hotels because over 80 percent of Cases del Bosque’s wine is exported, Nadea says.
Nevertheless, wine is still a staple in Chileans’ diets.
“It’s like futbol. No wait, it not as important as futbol, but you must drink wine with meals," Salazar del Rio says.
Casas del Bosque has now extended their dining and drinking experience by opening a new restaurant on the property fixed on the top of the hill overlooking the vineyard and shaded by the tree that inspired the product labeling.
The tree is atop the hill at Casas del Bosque inspired the lableing of each bottle produced at the vineyard.
Viña Indómita is nestled in the Casablanca Valley just minutes from Casas del Bosque. Viña Indómita is considered a medium winery.
Sebastian Guajardo, an Viña Indómita employee, says out of the 300 wineries in the Casablanca Valley 250 are small boutique wineries, so Viña Indómita stands out. The winery, not including the store, employs nine total people. The nine is made up of two wine masters, two chemist and five operators.
Working in the vineyards there are four full time staff members, two of whom are vineyard managers. During harvest, Viña Indómita only hires 15 more people because they use machines to pick the grapes for the young wines. Only the top wine selection grapes are collected by hand.
“The Casablanca Valley is similar to Sonoma Valley in California because the ocean is only 18 km away,”Guajardo says.
The months before harvest, January and February, are crucial to the grapes flavoring, Guajardo says. The direct sunlight allows the grapes to sweeten which is a key flavor in both white and red wines.
Even though Viña Indómita produces more than the boutique wineries, Guajardo says they don’t export much to U.S. most of the wine ends up in Northern Europe, specifically Finland, Norway, Sweden and the UK. He said that in 2015, China was the number one importer.
Guajardo says after all the exporting, only about five percent of the wine stays in Chile.
“It will take at least 10 years for Chile to become a wine drinking country,” Guajardo says.
Currently, consumption per capita in Chile is around eight to nine liters, compared to France with 48 liters.