Garage Wine Company Cru Truquilemu Carignan Field Blend 2019

Type: Red
Country: Chile
Region: Truquilemu and Maula
Grape Variety: Carignan Field Blend
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Ratings: 97 Robert Parker Points

Climate: Mediterranean climate with warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters
Terroir: Grapes produced from more than 70-year-old vines that are grown on granitic and subsoils
Winemaking: Naturally fermented with native yeasts in conical-shaped lagar fermenters. Caps are punched down by hand (slightly). Whole bunch and lignified stems were re-introduced after crush to avoid carbonic maceration. Aged for two years in third-use barrels

Color: Intense red
Nose: Characterful, floral, subtle and really elegant while keeping the varietal profile
Palate: Very fine-grained tannins over a balanced palate

About the Winery:
Garage Wine was literally started in a garage in 2001, by Etobicoke expat Derek Mossman and his wife Pilar Miranda. Since then, the dynamic duo handcrafted wines from a series of individual vineyards located in the Maule and Itata Valleys, in the south of Santiago, Chile.

Garage Wine Co 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.

Over the years working in the community they have raised a veritable posse of vineyard hands whose skills are working the vineyards the old way / the traditional way– originario. The vineyards are on the old coastal range of mountains closer to the Pacific and have granitic soils with cracks for roots to get deep down into.

Derek and Pilar think the farming practices that have evolved over generations have as much to do with the wines’ personalities as the soils. All the wines are made by hand with native yeasts in small tanks, punched down manually and pressed out in a small basket press. The Garage Wine Company 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 2,000 kilos at a time.