Alyan Family Wines

The winery

Alyan Family Wines was born in 2001 as the personal project of the married couple Alicia Balmaceda and Andrés Pérez, and its name joins the first letters of both: Al from Alicia and An from Andrés. Both come from wine families: she is a granddaughter of Pedro Undurraga, of Viña Undurraga, and he of Francisco Pérez, a winegrower from Maule. As the winery tells it, they previously held a stake in Santa Carolina and founded Viña Santa Alicia, which ran for 17 years until it merged with the Bethia group. The current winery, on Ruta G-425 in Pirque, was built with local stone and has its own workshops for wood, stone, iron, ceramics and glass, which produce the carved barrels, the furniture and much of the decor.

The vineyard is in Maipo Alto, which the house calls Maipo Andes, at about 750 meters above sea level, on stony alluvial soils with swings of up to 20 °C between day and night. The winemaker is Felipe Riveros and the work is done in small lots. There are three tiers: Gran Reserva, with 8 to 10 months in barrel; Family Ambassador, the line poured during the visit, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Syrah, Merlot, Chardonnay and a Gran Cuvée blend, aged 12 to 16 months in French oak; and Panacea, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend made only in the best years. The winery has also shown a wine called Alyan Naranjo on its social media.

Visits are always by booking, Monday to Sunday, and only for adults over 18. Alyan Sunset, awarded best wine-tourism experience in the Metropolitan Region at the Premios Enoturismo Chile 2025, takes up the whole afternoon: a guided, unhurried walk through the garden of grape varieties, the vineyard, the winery and the barrel room, with five or six glasses served in different corners and a complimentary informal dinner at the end. Between June and September there is also Alyan Meridian, similar in format, which starts at 11:00 and ends with lunch. Both are held in Spanish and Portuguese, often mixed in the same group, and the winery states that it does not offer tours in English. It is not a restaurant and has no transport of its own: since taxis and Ubers back to Santiago are hard to find, it recommends coming by car or hiring a round-trip transfer. The wines can be bought in the winery shop; no online shop is advertised.