Viña Castellón

The winery

Viña Castellón is a family project in the dry-farmed country of the Itata Valley, at Fundo Los Mayos, in the Paso El León area, right where the municipality of Ránquil meets Florida. At its head is Víctor Castellón Campos, a farmer who by 2020 had spent more than thirty years working this land; the winery has also presented Yolanda Campos Quezada as a producer. What sets the place apart is the curiosity with which they looked at their own vines: Víctor wanted to put a name to every variety in the vineyard and ended up at the biotechnology laboratory of INIA La Platina, where Dr. Patricio Hinrichsen identified grapes being described for the first time in a Chilean vineyard, such as Criolla Sanjuanina Grande and Folle Blanche, along with several genotypes with no known match. Students from the Universidad Mayor later described them by ampelography, and in October 2025 the SAG, Chile's agricultural and livestock service, added one of them, Castellón Noir (formerly NN-330), to its list of officially described varieties.

The old varieties grow head-trained, own-rooted and, according to the winery, unirrigated, and it puts their age at around 146 years; alongside País, Moscatel de Alejandría, Cinsault and San Francisco there are Chasselas, Carménère and Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines come out in small, hand-harvested batches: in 2019 there were 1,224 bottles of Coulles (Moscatel de Alejandría) and 816 of Redentor (Carménère). Seis Cóndores (Cinsault), Don Yito (País) and Paso el León (Chasselas) complete the line. The winery champions the wooden lagares (treading vats) and clay pilones of old, which share its cellar with stainless steel tanks. Redentor 2019 earned 93 points in Descorchados 2021, according to the winery. The wines, along with chicha (fresh fermented grape must) and vinegars, are ordered by WhatsApp or email, because the website and its online shop stopped loading in early November 2026. The house also keeps an after-dinner story: locals say these lands once belonged to a religious order, and Víctor found an old ecclesiastical medallion while planting Carménère.

Visits are by booking, Tuesday to Sunday between 9:00 and 18:00; on Mondays it is closed. Enoturismo Chile publishes three four-hour experiences with tasting and pairing, for a maximum of ten people: one through the vineyards, another on the origins of wine in the valley, and one in which each visitor makes their own wine and takes the bottle home. The winery also offers a tour of El Jardín de Variedades, its garden of grape varieties, with the price to be confirmed. There is a cabin on request and, in March and April only, a four-day, three-night program. Confirm prices and availability by WhatsApp before you go. Pets may come in under their owners' care, and only those over 18 taste. On the same Parcela Santa Yolanda, the Cartografía Vitivinícola del Biobío, the region's wine map, presents a Viña Doña Yolanda, with country cooking, a pool in summer and a wine shop, and the bottle it shows is a Castellón: ask whether that offer is still available.