Mingaco Moscatel Pipeña Itata 2021

Press 4 White • May 2024 Direct Press Selection

Daniela De Pablo and Pablo Pedreros have become respected all over Chile's Itata region for their farming practices. Pablo watched first hand as the vines his father and grandfather planted in the 1980s and 1990s began to wither after the first wave of industrial agricultural techniques replaced viticultural practices that had been in use for centuries. So Pablo went back to these techniques, starting with organics in 2010. They now are polycultural, biodynamic, and regenerative, with no tilling. They are the people to go to for help with anything related to vineyards and bringing life back to soils depleted by years of chemical overuse—not just vines but flora and fauna of all types.

Daniela, Pablo, and their children live among their vines in an eco-friendly house they built. They make kefir and soudough bread in their cellar along with wine, never using any sulfur. Their Moscatel is maybe one of the best expressions of the variety I've ever tasted. The floral aromas that often dominate Moscatel/Muscat based wines are tempered by spice, earth, and orange peel notes. It's complex, layered, ethereal, and earnest, a delicious and bewitching mix of elements. Grapes are destemmed and fermented in open top fiberglass tanks with 12 days of skin maceration. Aged in neutral oak for 11 months. Jonathan Kemp