Viña Chateau Los Boldos

The winery

Chateau Los Boldos grew out of the Santa Amalia estate, in Requínoa, an old landholding of more than 350 hectares whose vineyard was planted in 1936 at the foot of the Andes, in the area known today as Cachapoal Andes. The winery was built there in the 1940s. Over the years the estate was subdivided, and its new owners, mostly small growers, sold their grapes to the Cooperativa Santa Amalia, which operated in that same building. In 1991 a family of French origin bought part of the plots and the old winery to bottle wines at source, and in 2008 the property passed to the Guedes family, founders of the Portuguese group Sogrape, known for Mateus Rosé and owner of the winery to this day. Sogrape rebuilt the winery after the 2010 earthquake and finished the work in 2013: a red-tiled building with a palm garden, rooster-shaped weathervanes on the silo and the tower, and the bell that gives its name to one of its wines.

The vineyard covers 248 hectares at 385 meters above sea level, 150 of them planted with ten grape varieties, on the stony alluvial soils of the first terraces of the Cachapoal River. The cold air flowing down from the Andes sets the gap between day and night temperatures, and the grapes ripen slowly. All the wines come from this estate, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère at the center: Tradición Reserva, fresh and young; Gran Reserva, meant to go with food; La Campana, from selected parcels; Grand Clos, whose Cabernet Sauvignon comes from block 37, and Amalia Grand Cru, the icon wine, a red blend from vines more than 60 years old that honors the wife of Sogrape's founder. Specialty Series is the testing ground of head winemaker Diego Vergara, at the winery since 2022, with wines such as a Friulano and a Touriga Nacional, a grape the house planted in 2015 with plants brought from Portugal and presents as Chile's first. It reports working under the Sustainable Wine of Chile certification since 2014, and in winter a flock of sheep grazes among the vines to keep weeds down.

The winery publishes no tours or visitor program, and Sogrape does not include it on its wine-tourism page either, so ask before traveling. What it does say is that its wines can be bought at the winery: it has a direct-sales phone number, +56 9 4228 6185, and offers to send details by Instagram direct message. Google lists opening hours of Monday to Thursday 10:00 to 12:30 and 15:00 to 17:00, closed on weekends; the winery publishes no hours. To buy without going to Requínoa, its website links to the Butiq online store. No information is published about a restaurant or accommodation on the property.