- Carignan
- Dry
- Residual Sugar: 1.97 g/l
- Medium Bodied
- 750ml
- 13.5% alc./vol
About the Winery
Garage Wine Co.
Garage Wine was literally started in a garage in 2001, by Etobicoke expat Derek Mossman and his wife Pilar Miranda. Since then, the dynamic duo handcraft wines from a series of individual vineyards located in the Maule and Itata Valleys, in the south of Santiago, Chile.
Garage Wine Co 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.
Over the years working in the community they have raised a veritable posse of vineyard hands whose skills are working the vineyards the old way / the traditional way– originario. The vineyards are on the old coastal range of mountains closer to the Pacific and have granitic soils with cracks for roots to get deep down into.
When GWCo. speaks of the provenance of these wines they mean more than just the geological terroir. Derek and Pilar think the farming practices that have evolved over generations have as much to do with the wines’ personalities as the soils. 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 2,000 kilos at a time.
Press Reviews
Robert Parker
94 points
Always a noteworthy example in the Vigno association, the 2015 Vigno from Garage Wine Co. is one of their 11 single-vineyard bottlings. It's produced from eight barrels of Carignan and one of Mataró (Monastrell) with traces of País from an old field blend in one of the freshest corners of the Maule "secano interior" in Truquilemu (the other two are Huerta de Maule and the coastal part of Cauquenes, in Pilén). There is a faint animal touch of leather and cured meat and a rustic twist of tree bark and earth. The palate is serious and has an austere texture provided by the granite soils; this could be lighter and fresher. This is the same base as the Lot #67, as this comes from their largest vineyard. 2,315 bottles were filled in December 2016.
Deschorchados
94 points
Carignan is a variety with a wild, rustic texture and refreshing acidity and floral aromas at the same time—a delicious dichotomy that, in the hands of Garage Wine Co. and under the Vigno seal (a collective of carignan vintners) is transformed into a little fruit-flavored monster with lots of power and lots of energy that can only be matched by well-grilled lamb chops.