The Movimiento de Viñateros Independientes (MoVi) came to shake up the Chilean wine scene, until then dominated by medium to large wineries. Today, with 35 members, it continues to bring fresh air to Chilean wine.
In the late 2000s, the Chilean wine scene was very different from what it is today. Supermarket shelves were generous with labels, but it was dominated by medium and large wineries, and the idea that you couldn’t make a living from wine if you didn’t produce, half a million bottles, was what prevailed. But little by little things were changing. In those years, there were murmurs of small winemakers in the south of Chile, in Maule and Itata, and Biobío, artisans who were proposing a different world, land not brand — instead of the demands of the international market. This group, today well consolidated, was – and still is – the antithesis of what is known as the wine ‘industry’.
But something was missing, a group to fill a gap and make change happen. And that role was played by Movi, the movement of independent vintners. By 2009, many of the Chilean wine industry’s decisions depended on one or a few associations that mainly included large conglomerates in their ranks. In those years, and under that scheme, the possibilities of visualisation for small producers or ventures were limited. As this was the reality, and in a scenario of high production volumes and economies of scale, the costs of inputs to produce in small industry were high and often did not reach the minimum purchase requirements. It was in response to this problem that Movi was born’, says Sergio Avendaño, from Viña Trabún, and current president of Movi.
But beyond this objective, what caught the attention of Movi was the way they showed themselves to the public, in an informal / hippie way for the extra conservative standards of wine in Chile in those years. And there you could see them, twelve producers who were the ones who formed the association in 2009, present at fairs, with the music up, all with their allusive t-shirts, a tribe of people who showed a much more relaxed side of wine. Today there are 35 members of Movi. In the beginning, the selection criteria was a search for projects that fit our philosophy and we invited them to participate. Over time, the formula has changed and today each project that enters the organization does so through an active member who presents it to the board’, says Avendaño.
And they all comply with the idea of being small producers who, united, manage to make themselves known in an industry where marketing, airline tickets, hotels and restaurant meals take up a good part of the budget for dissemination. Chile has by far the largest average winery size in the world and the niche wine scene didn’t really exist. Movi moved the bar, it was the first group that showed that in Chile you could make wines on a human scale and it was the spearhead for everything that happened afterwards. In the mid-1990s, it was easy to know 100% of all the wines made in Chile. Today that is very difficult. The number of labels and names is infinite. That atomisation was thanks to Movi. But they were soon not alone. Chile was ready for this step.
After fifteen years, this partnership continues to offer fresh air on the national scene, the Movi Nights parties are among the most attended events in Chilean wine (and among the most entertaining) and the wines, at the beginning perhaps too focused on making a living for the owners, today seem more confident, more relaxed and more diverse. There is a diversity of proposals within Movi and that diversity is good for Chilean wine.
