Villalobos 'Silvestre' Carignan
Near Ranguili village in the Colchagua Valley is a magically wild place where vines grow unfettered - free to crawl up the surrounding trees and to draw breath surrounded by untouched wildness! These vines produce stunning fruit! Can you imagine the native yeast that settles here?!! Mind blown!!!
Brought here in the 1940’s, the Carignan vines that grow here were among the first to be planted in Chile and were abandoned here in Valle de los Artistas. And although other parts of Chile may utlize more modern techniques, the Villalobos family view winemaking as another art form - a creative bridge between nature and the human world! So, the vines grow wild amidst native Chilean flora & fauna with plants such as maitenes, roses, culenes, pine trees and blackberry bushes providing natural pest control and shade cover. Committed to using no fossil fuel, the family has horses who graze here and are free to nibble on vine branches which provides a sort of pruning. Their droppings provide nutrient-rich fertilizer for all the plants. The horses are viewed as part of the family and it is truly symbotic relationships at their best! Glorious biodiversity which imparts a certain wildness to the wine that is intriguing and sexy AF!
All grapes are harvested by hand. The grapes are never machine pressed - the weight of the grapes gently presses the juice allowing gravity to act as the press. The gently extracted juice is transferred to stainless steel tanks allowing some oxygenation and continuing spontaneous fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, the wine is aged in neutral French oak barrels over the course of 18 months or until ready.
A side note: the Valle de los Artistas, in the Colchagua Valley, is an artist community in the midst of the preserve. The wine cellar was founded in the workshop of sculptor Enrique Villalobos. Enrique, his wife, ceramic artist, Rita Encina and their sons, Martin, Alejandro and Rolando, oversee the vineyard and winemaking. The Villalobos family sees sculpture, art in all its forms and winemaking as artistic practices linked by their goals of turning natural objects into works of art. And their embrace of the wild and natural process of winemaking is artistry at its finest.
This is the lightest bodied Carignan I have ever experienced! Bright red fruits and wild blackberry dance with savory notes of wild herbs. Unlike the smoke taint happening in Oregon & California wines these days, the smokey notes here are from the wildness of the forest soil the vines are deeply rooted in and not wildfire. Intriguing, balanced and utterly unlike anything I've ever had before! I keep using the word wild but I cannot think of a better way to describe this strange and wondrous wine!