Viña Echeverría is a family-run estate winery, owned and managed by the Echeverría family. Established in 1930, but with an agricultural heritage going back to the 1700s, Viña Echeverría is as much today, as always, driven by a shared passion for winemaking and an uncompromising search for excellence. Viña Echeverría combines nearly a century of viticulture and winemaking experience with a modern state-of-the-art winery. It has recently been awarded its Sustainable Winery status by Wines of Chile.
The vineyard is located in Molina in the Curico Valley at an altitude of 243 metres. It is situated on the 35th Parallel South, between the Andes Mountains and the cool Pacific Ocean. Intense sunshine is tempered by cooling sea breezes, allowing the grapes to achieve outstanding fruit aromas and exceptional colour concentration. The warm dry days and cold nights encourage a long growing season, which is ideally suited to produce healthy vines and grapes. Working with a model of micro viticulture, each plot, of no more than half a hectare, is identified according to its terroir and microclimate and planted accordingly. Grapes are subjected to specific pruning, irrigation, canopy management and harvesting, which results in grapes of optimum quality and flavour. The fertile soils are alluvial in origin, with clay loam and stone at 80cm.
The grapes were carefully selected, crushed, destemmed and chilled to 8°C followed by a direct pneumatic pressing. A static sedimentation took place at 8°C for 24 to 36 hours. The must was then fermented in stainless steel tanks with selected yeasts at controlled temperatures of between 14 to 16°C for a period of 25 days. The wine was stored in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks, to retain the fresh and fruity character, prior to bottling.
2018 was characterised by a lack of rainfall. Nevertheless, it was a good vintage for quality. Frost occurred in spring, but a dry, slow ripening season allowed good flavour accumulation, with low disease pressure. No significant rainfall took place at harvesting, resulting in grapes with excellent varietal characteristic, with some slightly lower alcohol levels.
