Our iconic wine has a history that has reached its adulthood in the concert of the select group of great Maipo wines.

The alluvial soils, with a high presence of clay and gravel from the old terrace of the Maipo River that covers origins such as Puente Alto and San Bernardo, is interrupted by an island hill, Chena Hill. It is at the foot of this hill, already occupied by the Incas as a defensive and observation place, where the grapes that give life to our wine are born. Planted in 1997, in an avant-garde high density of 7,000/ha with a slope of 22.5 ° West to avoid the sun’s rays during the hottest hour.

Time passes and the last decade was characterized, with few exceptions (2010, 2011 and 2018), by year after year increasing the average-maximum summer temperatures and decreasing winter rainfall.

In this context, starting with the 2014 vintage, but very strongly starting with the 2017, we decided on some changes in the management of the vineyards, basically in terms of irrigation, green management, and particularly, a decidedly earlier harvest date. Early than what we had been doing up to that point.

The result has been a very positive evolution of this great wine, an “aggiornamento” towards a harmonious combination of a concentrated character, intensely fruity, based on red and black berries, with an important and at the same time fine tannic structure.

Changes in aging, combining barrels with large format foudres to finish the last 6 months before bottling, complement the approach started in the vineyard and curdle a wine that has been in this 2019 vintage a true reflection of the commitment to quality and innovation that Morandé has carried since its foundation.

The 2019 harvest began with a rather cold spring, but once summer arrived, it turned warm, with successive heat waves until the end of February. The end of summer, however, returned to normal temperature parameters, and allowed us to calmly harvest perfectly ripe grapes.

Irrigation was key in this, as well as vinification in open wooden vats, where we can make softer and longer extractions, resulting in a complex and elegant wine, with moderate alcohol content and that perfectly reflects the San Bernardo terroir, perhaps the lowest part of the so-called Alto Maipo.