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      • Cru Truquilemu
        Carignan
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    • Limited Release
      • Isidore Vineyard
        Semillón – #F_
      • Truquilemu Vineyard
        Carignan – #_7
    • Parcels / Vinos de Parcela
      • Pirque Vineyard
        Cabernet Franc – #_0
      • Reelegido Vineyard
        Cabernet Sauvignon – #_1
      • Las Higueras Vineyard
        Cabernet Franc – #_2
      • Old Vine Pale
        Carignan, Mataró – #_3
      • Renacido Vineyard
        Cabernet Sauvignon – #_4
      • Sauzal Vineyard
        Carignan, Garnacha, Mataró – #_5
      • Bagual Vineyard Caliboro
        Carignan, Garnacha, Mataró – #_6
      • Truquilemu Vineyard
        Syrah – #_8
      • Bagual Vineyard Caliboro
        Garnacha Field-blend – #_9
    • Single Ferment Series
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        215 BC Ferment
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          Lot 98
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Falstaff: Truquilemu 2018, 98 tasting notes 2023

Thursday, 23 February 2023 by Derek Mossman Knapp

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Falstaff: Truquilemu 2018, 98 puntos de cata 2023

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Chile 2022 special report – by Tim Atkin MW

Tuesday, 24 January 2023 by Derek Mossman Knapp
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Tim Atkin
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Vinos rosados: no más el patito feo

Sunday, 18 December 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp
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Reportaje La Cav: viña del año

Monday, 12 September 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp

We do not like the category icon (is that one word or two?) but it is always nice to be considered with wines crafted with so much love and attention to detail.

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Tamlyn Currin on Garage Wine Co.

Monday, 12 September 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp

Read at jancisrobinson.com https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/old-vine-wines-part-3-chile-and-argentina?
… (and suscribe, it’s great!)

A semillon with character…🍷
@tamlyncurrin eloquent description and tasting score for our Garage Wine Co, Isidore Vineyard F3 Semillon 2020 Maule 17.5++
Thank you!

A long life rose… 🍇

Cheers @tamlyncurrin for such wonderful words about Truquilemu Vineyard Old Vine Pale Rosé Lot 103 Cariñena/Monastrell 2020 Empedrado (17.5 😉

Each wine hides a great story on the palate and we thank @tamlyncurrin for discovering them. 🍷
Garage Wine Co, Single Ferment Series The Soothsayers Ferment Cinsault 2019 Secano Interior, Portezuelo 17,5

Another of our highlights in the words of @tamlyncurrin
Sauzal Vineyard Lot 95 Cariñena/Grenache/Monastrell 2018 Stoned 17.5 🍷

El Maule draws applause and shines with our Truquilemu Vineyard, Lot 97 Cariñena 2018, along with the tasting notes and score of Tamlyn Currin 17.5 👏

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Old vine wines – part 3 Chile and Argentina

Monday, 22 August 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp
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Garage Wine Co’s Old-vine Revival coming to Ontario

Sunday, 07 August 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp

Pioneering winemaker, Derek Mossman Knapp of Garage Wine Co, will be in Toronto soon to launch their Old-vine Revival project, an initiative to revive small parcels of old vines of the historic variety “País” during lockdown. Garage Wine Co is passionate about bringing this historical variety to a new generation of wine drinkers in Ontario.

The Revival project is not sustainable it is regenerative, and not just for the vines but for the community as well. The venture centres around working with small farmers to revive their old vineyard plots neglected due to poor grape prices and some having been burned in the bushfires of 2017. ̈The plots are simply: too small, too far from a paved road and their rows are too narrow to get a tractor between to be considered feasible by the mainstream ̈ Derek says.

̈We have realised the value of old vines is not in their photogenic candelabra profile above ground, but in their roots. These roots that have spent literally a century and more adapting to their place. Old roots drink deep and they are shock absorbers for vintage swings, drought and even fire. The roots have a tremendous life-force in them and new shoots come up that, with a little coaxing, come back to produce gorgeous fruit. ̈

When the pandemic hit, vignerons were travelling to jobs in shared vans and putting themselves at risk. Garage wanted to do something to help protect them so they created a project where they could work in safe social bubbles close to home. Many had neglected vineyards in their own backyards, which provided the safest work environment possible under the circumstances. Derek says: ̈When we saw all of this we reached out to Nicholas Pearce Wines and asked for some special ́En Primeur Support ́. None of this would have happened without their collaboration. ̈

The small parcels were planted with País in generations past. País arrived to Chile from the Canary Islands and it is documented as far back as 1548 when it served as the wine for Catholic Mass, as well as an important part of homesteading going on on the Southern frontier. Since then, perhaps twenty generations have farmed País in this allegedly New World wine neighborhood. Over the past twenty-five years many vineyards have fallen into neglect. By creating work the Old-vine Revival Project offers something for younger generations to stay on the farm for—instead of heading for the cities in search of a livelihood.

In his closing remarks at the UK launch recently Derek asked : ̈What if ́farming ́ –cultivating and sowing for the future– could be a metaphor for a business ethos that goes beyond the vineyard earthworks, and helps establish a new measuring stick – a new ́bottom line ́ that includes the local community and our planet? Business can be a force for good, and not just in the good times, but in the tricky ones too. ̈

The new 2021 Pais Old Vine Revival and other wines from Garage Wine Co are available through Nicholas Pearce Wines …

For trade enquiries please contact celia@npwines.com

About The Garage Wine Co:

Garage Wine began quite literally in the garage of Pilar and Derek Mossman Knapp. After half a dozen vintages making wine for an informal market of family and friends, it began exporting to UK and Denmark in 2006

Their wines include a series of dry-farmed field-blends of Cariñena, 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 one-to-two hectare parcel in more than a dozen locals: Bagual, Calivoro, Guarilihue, Puico, Sauzal, Truquilemu….

Garage revives old vineyards — diamonds in the rough, practicing regenerative farming, working elbow to elbow in the community. They have a keen focus on small parcels ( bottling these lots individually) and the inclusion of small farmer growers whose families have been the stewards of these old vines for centuries.

Image on right: mattwilson.cl credit.

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Garage Wine Co. : 4 no son multitud

Saturday, 05 February 2022 by Derek Mossman Knapp
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La revolución rosada

Friday, 09 October 2020 by Derek Mossman Knapp
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Recent Posts

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  • Chile 2022 special report – by Tim Atkin MW

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  • Vinos rosados: no más el patito feo

  • Alvaro ¨The Investigator¨

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  • Regenerative farming

Garage Wine Co
Winery: Camino San Antonio Caliboro KM 5.8 San Javier 3660000
Región del Maule, Chile

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About Garage Wine Co.

Garage Wine began quite literally in Pilar and Derek’s Garage. After half a dozen vintages making wine for an informal market of family and friends, it began exporting to UK & Denmark in 2006

The Parcels

GWCo 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: Bagual, Caliboro, Coelemu, Guarilihue, Loncomilla, Portezuelo, Puico, Ranquil, Sauzal, Truquilemu…

Over the years working in the community we have raised a veritable posse of vineyard hands whose skills are working the vineyards the old way / the traditional way— originario. We cultivate vineyards with small vigneron partners who work with horse and plough as his family has done for generations. Some of the parcels, where the next generation moved to the city, we have opted to rent long-term creating more work for the local hands who do want to stay on the farm.

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The vineyards are on the old Coastal Range of mountains closer to the Pacific — Chile’s other mountains. These are older and cooled more slowly so they have granitic soils, many with intrusions and cracks for roots to get deep down into. When GWCo. speaks of the provenance of our wines however we mean more than just the geology of the terroir. This is a good start, but we are convinced the farming practices that have evolved over generations have as much to do with the wines’ personalities as the soils. The regeneration of the vineyards long since neglected depends upon this farming.

GWCo. also makes an old-vine Cab Franc (old bush head vines) and a Cab Sauv blend in the Maule as well as two Cabs mountain-grown in the Maipo where the firm began in 2003.

All the wines are made by hand with native yeasts in small tanks, punched down manually and pressed out in a small basket press. GWCo 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,ooo kilos at a time.

Single Ferment Series Wines

Pais & Cinsault in the Secano Interior, the cradle of the original Chilean viticulture, have been forever the victim of commodity pricing. When GWCo saw its Carignan growers being paid paltry sums for their other fruit we began acquiring small bits from various farmers to experiment. From the beginning, we paid bonafide prices that would allow for the traditional field works to cultivate the soil properly to continue into the future. Commercial bottlings of “Single Ferments” began with serendipity when we simply could not resist not one but three small bits of Cinsault. And then promptly plain ran out of tanks to ferment them in. With nowhere to put all three, we simply stacked the second bit of newly harvested fruit on top of the first already fermenting—and then the third on top of both, creating one single fermentation from the fruit of three farms. We adopted the same technique with Pais and subsequently named both wines: Single Ferment Series.

The Nitty Gritty

In these times it is important to stand for what you believe in, and more importantly to build the kind of business you believe in. At Garage Wine Co. we revive old vineyards in marginalized Chilean communities to make coveted wines. We’ve positioned these wines in a dozen established fine wine markets around the world and we grow. The wines are not made to be expensive per se, but they are found on the higher shelves– they need to command a price that allows for proper farming. What we have discovered is that the long-term practices of regenerative farming not only make for better fruit and thus more flavourful wine, but that such a business can become a force for financial, community and environmental good.

The Baby and the Bathwater  

As South American wine exports have boomed over the last quarter-century, it has grown increasingly difficult for small farmers to sell their old-vine grapes at a proper price – a price that can consistently sustain family and community. Mainstream buyers want more for less and they would have the growers modernise. The modern wine business calls for spraying instead of cultivating, scaling instead of focusing, and above all: reducing the cost of labour. But with the old vineyards, the labour is precisely where one finds the wisdom of farming passed down through the ages. Throwing that away would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Regenerative Farming

Farming in the Secano Interior, the Maule and Itata valleys of Southern Chile, has been a way of life since Colonial times. Not just vineyards, but mixed farming of heritage seed wheat, free-range livestock and local market produce. Small-scale farms use dry-farming methods: turning over the earth to capture scarce seasonal rainwater, and nutrients from the clever use of seasonal cover crops that in turn help sequester carbon from the air, and the use of horses to get into rows where tractors can’t reach.

This is where GWCo. works; too far from the comfort zone of those in the mainstream. These vineyards were neglected and relegated to bulk wine for decades because the booming market wanted branded varietals that didn’t command a price to support the work.

For more than a decade GWCo. has worked these old vines, there has been a marked improvement both in vineyard health and quality of the fruit produced.

The marrying of the fieldcraft of these small-scale farmers with the lens of modern science and GWCo’s mindful winemaking took a decade, but the marriage has proven successful not just for GWCo, but also for the farmers, our suppliers and customers alike. Over the past few years, we have begun to rent and in some cases acquire the property underneath the old vines. Today one-third of our production is worked our way with our own people.

Necessity was the mother of sustainability

Sustainability for us was never about seals and certifications. We became sustainable just trying to survive being small in an industry geared to the big. Vintage after vintage we made our way through a series of necessary work-arounds, finding a way forward, that only later would be seen to be sustainable.

Recycled bottles – Because our production runs were small we were challenged when it came to dry-goods. When bottle makers refused to deliver to us, we found a local bottle recycler who became a trusted partner. This small business employs workers in a rural part of the country where stable and safe work is hard to find. What we learned is that when bottles are manufactured they have a limited shelf-life on the factory patio—a best before date if you will. Today we buy these bottles and wash them before use. This is glass that would otherwise have been smashed and melted and remade—without ever having been used. What is the carbon footprint of a bottle manufactured twice to be used once?

Labels & Packaging— We learned to paint / silk-screen bottles because our bottlings were so small that the label printers did not want to work with us. The industry was geared to long print runs and said there was no money in printing 1200 labels. So we built a custom machine and found experienced hands with silk-screening. Luis, our bottle painter, has been painting bottles for us for 11 years now. (Chile’s first hotel built entirely of recycled materials: The WineBox, has adapted out bottles for their lamps today.)

What’s with the wax? - Regular capsules were also sold with a minimum far larger than our needs, so we found a school supply firm that would make us food-safe wax for seals from crayon wax.

All of these workarounds-- bothers slash hassles at the time, led to a positive and durable differentiation in packaging. We have continued to work with earth-friendly inks for silk screening and recycled materials for cases.

Fermentation tanks: Unable to buy new tanks— designed to make mainstream wines, large, expensive and inflexible in their design, we took the leftover cuttings and scraps of a large stainless manufacturer and pieced together Lagars (traditional word for open tanks). We did it for far less money and the upcycling created opportunities for local welding shops.

Fruit: Years ago we bought from mainstream growers. When we made a crackerjack wine, the grower would use the prestige with critics to sell our fruit to someone bigger / better known leaving us without said fruit and without continuity in our portfolio. After two or three experiences such as this, frustrated, we went South to the Secano to work with growers unknown, unpolished, and disconnected from the mainstream. Working closely with small growers far from the beaten path, we found diamonds in the rough. When the polishing was done we had forged a bond with the growers—partnerships that we have continued to build upon with others in the neighbourhood.

Diverse leadership

Let’s face it, the wine business can be conservative, clubby and patriarchic. Having a female lead our work helps us work with our growers and suppliers on a different footing. We also like to mix scientists with field hands. Instead of contracting the cheapest bused-in labour, we keep it local where there are more experienced hands. Mercenary piecework doesn’t work — proper sourcing does. It’s a mouthful, but in a phrase: the difference created by the discretionary effort released when you work in good faith with local farmhands is so much more than the savings that might be achieved from cost-cutting, that there’s no comparing the two. We have never looked back.

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