Garage Wine Co, 2017 Pirque Vineyard, Cabernet Franc, Pirque, Alto Maipo, Chile
Garage Wine Co quite literally began in the garage of husband and wife team Derek Mossmann Knapp and Pilar Miranda in 2003. They set out to work with and vinify small parcels from different micro terroirs across central Chile. What's more was this was a relatively revolutionary concept in Chile back in the day, and still is to a certain respect. In a country whose wine industry is driven by value positioned wines, with a handful of icon wines at super-premium price points, Derek and Pillar sought to establish the core of their range in the middle. Reviving old, in some cases, virtually abandoned vineyards using sustainable and regenerative viticultural practices, paying fair wages to their vineyard workers, and telling a different story about wine and viticulture in Chile.
Sourcing usually 1-2ha parcels of vines across different vineyards in Maipo, Maule and Itata, they work with several grape varieties, including old vine País and Carignan, and of course Chile's most important French variety, Cabernet Sauvignon, but slowly over the last decade Cabernet Franc has become a bit of a calling card for the estate. This is now one of two single-vineyard, single-varietal Cabernet Francs that Garage makes.
So what does the Cabernet Franc picture look like in Chile? There are approximately 1685ha of Cabernet Franc planted, which makes it the 15th most planted grape variety. And yes this is minuscule relative to the over 40,000ha of Cabernet Sauvignon planted, but in 1997 there was only 64ha of Cabernet Franc in the ground. That's a 2500% increase in Cab Franc plantings in 2 decades. Granted, from a very small base, but for a Cab Franc nerd like me, this is encouraging news.
So, getting into today's wine, this is taking us to Maipo, which is one of five regions within Chile's Central Valley, which is the heartland of Chile's wine production. The Central Valley represents 76% of vineyards and 80% of the country's production. Maipo is the smallest of these 5 regions in terms of hectares, and it can be divided into 3 zones: the Alto Maipo, Central Maipo and Western Maipo.
So today's wine coming from the Alto Maipo which is the furthest east, and more specifically the sub-region of Pirque, which is essentially one of 4 micro-terroirs within the Alto Maipo. We're less than 20km southeast of Santiago, about 100km inland from the Pacific Ocean, in a higher altitude zone in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. This region of Pirque spans around 960ha and altitudes range from around 500m upwards to 1000m, and we are dealing with a more continental climate.
Where the Pirque Vineyard is located, we at about 600m above sea level, so we have the cooling influence of altitude, and the large diurnal range with warm days and cool nights to slow down ripening. In addition to that, we have the benefit of these strong, almost constant, cooling breezes that come down from the Andes and follow the Maipo River valley.
In terms of soils, Pedro Parra has actually studied the soils here at this vineyard. They are of alluvial origin, that is a clay-silt mix, and there was once an ancient river that flowed through this area, that was a tributary of the Rio Clarillo, which left in its path these river stones, or gravels, that start around 50 to 90cm deep.
So, this is coming from a 1ha parcel of around 35 year old own-rooted vines. The fruit was hand-harvested, destemmed, and they added back in around 5-10% of stems, which Derek explained that this helps to give tension to the finished wine, without the confected fruit characters that semi-carbonic or carbonic maceration can give using whole clusters. The fermentation takes place with indigenous yeast in small open top fermenters, with some manual punchdowns during the fermentation, with a post-fermentation maceration of about 10 days. Aging takes place for around 18 months in older oak barrels.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Garage Wine Co
Region: Central Valley
Region: Maipo
Sub-region: Alto Maipo
DO: Pirque D.O.
Soils: alluvial clay-loam with river stones/pebbles starting 50-90cm deep
Alcohol: 14.0%
