Las Niñas El Guapo

They say that behind every man there is a great woman. In this story, there is not just one, but several. In 1996, Bernard Dauré managed to convince his friends Jean Pierre Cayard and Claude Florensa to embark on a new project: making wines in the D.O. Apalta, in the Colchagua Valley (only two hours south of Santiago de Chile). What Dauré didn’t imagine was that the mothers and daughters of these three families would fall in love with this area and jump headlong into this new idea. So, and in honour of all these women, the Viña Las Niñas winery was born.

A quarter of a century has passed since the beginning of this story, enough time for this horseshoe-shaped valley to become one of the largest and most active winegrowing areas in Chile, recognised as a Denomination of Origin since 2018. Here, on sandy clay and volcanic rock soils, there are 160 hectares of vineyards growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère. These plots are sheltered to the north, east and west by 600-metre hills. The terrain forms a kind of funnel where the cold and humid winds from the Pacific and the Andes come down the slopes at nightfall. The high daytime temperatures (reaching 35ºC) are also regulated by the Tinguiririca River, south of Atapalta. These conditions favour a slow ripening of the grapes, which results in acidic and fresh wines like Las Niñas El Guapo.

To make Las Niñas El Guapo, the grapes are grown in specially selected rows, with low but high quality yields. After a thorough selection, the grapes are harvested in 12 kg trays and transferred to the winery. The grapes are deseeded and destemmed by hand and then transferred directly to 500-litre French oak barrels where Las Niñas El Guapo ferments at a low temperature (which ensures that the varietal aromas are maintained). After this process, malolactic fermentation takes place. The subsequent blending, and the return to French oak barrels, will be the beginning of Las Niñas El Guapo’s aging process, which lasts for 10 to 12 months before bottling.