Viña Armidita

The winery

Armidita is in Chanchoquín Grande, in the Tránsito Valley, one of the two valleys that make up the upper Huasco, in the municipality of Alto del Carmen, Atacama Region. Its story begins in 1873, when Nicolás Naranjo built a 14 km canal that made it possible to plant 250 hectares of vines in the middle of the desert. The estate and its wine are named after his daughter Armidita, who died at the age of eleven, and the family tells that the wine won a first prize in Paris in 1888. After two more owners, Gudelio Ramírez and his wife Violeta Ibarbe, who had learned to make pajarete from her father, arrived at the estate in 1972; today the winery is run by their daughters, Sandra and Cecilia Ramírez.

Its flagship wine is Pajarete, a fortified, naturally sweet wine made from Moscatel grapes, with a designation of origin in Atacama and Coquimbo and a tradition of more than two centuries in the Huasco. For generations it was made by hand; from 2008 a public program led by the Universidad de Chile trained the valley's producers, and the family modernized its production from 2010. The 2011 vintage brought its first awards, a gold medal with 97 points in the 2013 Palacio de Hierro guide and a bronze at that year's Wines of Chile Awards, and the 2012 vintage added a gold at the Wines of Chile Awards, 90 points in Descorchados and 91 in the Guía Peñín. Later the family added pisco from its own distillery, launched in 2014, a gin and Moscatel wines.

The winery does not publish a tourism offer, but it does receive visitors who arrange in advance: according to press reports and the comments of those who have been, the Ramírez sisters show the winery and the distillery, explain how pajarete and pisco are made, offer tastings of their products and sell bottles on site. There are cabins on the same property for overnight stays. To book, call +56 9 9826 3671 or write to armidita@armidita.cl. Outside the valley, Pajarete Armidita (500 ml bottle) and the Primer Encanto and Sol del Desierto piscos are sold at Jumbo supermarkets, and the online shop BBVinos also carries them.