Viña Ballek

The winery

Viña Ballek is a project of the Ballek family in the Los Muñoces area of Isla de Maipo, in the Maipo Valley, about 45 minutes from Santiago according to the winery itself. They say they started making wine some four decades ago as a family hobby and that over time they opened the farm to visitors. They still produce on a small scale, fewer than 10,000 bottles a year as reported in 2022, with grapes from Isla de Maipo picked and sorted by hand.

Its icon wine is Potopelao (roughly “bare bottom”), which wears its humor in the name and on the label: a figure diving headfirst into a barrel, rear end in the air. The most widely available version is a red blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Syrah and Merlot, aged in barrel and marked “unfiltered” on the label; there are also bottles of Syrah. At the Vendimia del Valle del Maipo 2026 harvest festival the winery presented Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Malbec and Syrah, and in 2025 it showed the harvest of a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc. The wines are sold at the cellar door on the property; the winery also advertises sales through Mercado Libre.

The place is easy to recognize by its buildings shaped like giant barrels, set among vineyards, trees and hills: one is the cellar door and another has a decorated window, “Wine This Way”, made for taking photos. There are two tours with published prices, both Monday to Sunday at 10:00, 11:30 and 13:00 with a booking: Una Copa, a short guided tour ending with a glass of Potopelao, and Tour a Potopelao, with a walk through the vineyard and three wines by the glass. The winery also names a Tour a Todo Cachete, with no published price. Children under 15 enter free and get juice and cookies; pets are welcome and, arranged in advance, the house hosts groups, lunches and events. Book by WhatsApp or Instagram, and give notice ahead of time if you want the visit in another language.