Garage Wine Co., 2018 Las Higueras Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Maule, Chile
Cab Franc du Jour #114
When Garage Wine Co was launched in 2003 by husband-and-wife team Derek Mossmann-Knapp and Pilar Miranda, their goal was to work with and vinify small parcels from micro terroirs across central Chile and to tell a different story about Chilean wine. Their beginnings were literal: making wine in the couple’s garage, sourcing from usually 1 to 2-hectare parcels of old and in some cases abandoned vineyards across the regions of Maipo, Maule, and Itata. The winery works with several varieties, including old-vine País and Carignan and Chile’s most important French variety, Cabernet Sauvignon, but over the last decade Cabernet Franc has quietly become something of a calling card for the estate. Las Higueras is one of two single-vineyard, single-varietal Cabernet Francs in the Garage Wine Co range.
Cabernet Franc in Chile
Cabernet Franc remains a very small piece of the overall picture in Chile. There are approximately 1,685ha planted, a modest figure against the backdrop of over 40,000ha of Cabernet Sauvignon, though the trajectory is significant: in 1997 there were only 64 hectares in the ground, meaning plantings have grown considerably over the last three decades.
Maule
Las Higueras takes us to the region of Maule, one of five regions within Chile’s Central Valley, the heartland of Chilean wine production representing 76% of the country’s total vineyard area. Maule accounts for roughly a third of that area and about a quarter of production, making it the largest single region in the Central Valley.
Maule has a distinctive identity. Author Amanda Barnes describes it as the grassroots region of the Central Valley, with humble, old-school farming at its core. Those origins, combined with a favourable Mediterranean climate that carries more continental influences and receives roughly double the rainfall of Maipo and Cachapoal, drove a wave of plantings in the late 18th and 19th centuries, with European varieties arriving toward the end of the 19th century as phylloxera was ravaging European vineyards. Many of those French variety plantings took the form of mixed field blends, typically dry-farmed given the region’s higher rainfall. Over time, with its humble origins and the relative absence of foreign investment compared to the regions closer to Santiago, Maule became synonymous with bulk wine production, a characterization that still holds true for a large part of the region today.
Yet a quiet renaissance is underway in parts of Maule, and at the heart of it are these very old vineyards. Producers like Garage Wine Co have begun working with once-abandoned sites, recognizing the value that old, dry-farmed vines represent. They work with local farmers, pay fair wages and a premium for the fruit, and focus on making small-production, high-quality wines with a genuine story behind them.
As is true across Chile, the climate of any given area in Maule is shaped more by proximity to the Pacific Ocean to the west or the Andes to the east than by latitude, which is why the designations Costa, Entre Cordilleras, and Andes are more informative on a label than the name of a specific sub-region. Maule is a vast region, stretching over 100km wide and nearly 150km from north to south, and while it can be loosely divided into three sub-regions, the Claro Valley, the Loncomilla Valley, and the Tutuvén Valley, climatic conditions are best understood through this east-west lens.
The Loncomilla Valley and the Las Higueras Vineyard
This wine comes from the Loncomilla Valley, whose borders are roughly defined by the Purapel River to the west and the Andes to the east, with the Maule River marking the northern boundary where Loncomilla meets the Claro Valley. Vineyards in the Entre Cordilleras zone tend to run warmer than those in the Andes zone further east.
The Las Higueras Vineyard is in the Andes zone, just north of the Achibueno River and west of the town of Linares, at around 165m above sea level in the lower Andean foothills. That modest elevation brings the benefit of cool air descending from the mountains at night. The vineyard covers about 9 hectares of Cabernet Franc, which the Garage Wine Co team farms in its entirety, though only about 2 hectares go into this cuvée. The soils are of alluvial origin, with a mix of clay and rounded river stones over a somewhat sandier, stonier subsoil.
The 2-hectare portion used for this bottling is a specific block of own-rooted, pre-phylloxera vines that are nearly 120 years old. The vineyard was largely abandoned by its previous owner, and the block had been trellised, but the posts and wires had fallen into disrepair. Rather than restore the trellis, the team chose to let the vines return to a more natural state, and they are now old bush vines, dry-farmed using organic practices.
Derek shared a telling detail about this block: it was once part of a larger vineyard of over 100 hectares, all of which was pulled out roughly 25 years ago except for this single parcel of Cabernet Franc. Something clearly marked it as worth preserving. Garage Wine Co has been working with it since 2013, and one of its most consistent and distinctive qualities is that the fruit reliably achieves phenolic maturity at a relatively low alcohol level, around 13%.
In the Cellar
The fruit is hand-harvested, mostly destemmed and crushed. Once in the fermenter, light punchdowns are performed to extract some juice, and the most lignified stems from the bunches, about 20%, are added back into the tank. Fermentation takes place with indigenous yeast in a large oval stainless steel tank, with minimal cap management required. The post-fermentation maceration runs approximately 10 days, and the wine is then aged for around 18 months in third-use or older French oak barrels.
Wine Details
Producer: Garage Wine Co.
Region: Maule, Central Valley, Chile
Sub-Region: Loncomilla Valley (Andes)
Vineyard: Las Higueras Vineyard
Soils: Alluvial clay mix with large, round river stones, more sandy subsoil with more stones
Alcohol: 12.8%