Viña Choapa (Choapa Wines)

The winery

Viña Choapa is in Panguesillo, a village in the municipality of Salamanca on the Choapa River, some 310 km north of Santiago and 93 km inland from Los Vilos. The Choapa Valley, a designation of origin since 1994, runs through the narrowest part of Chile, between mountains and mineral deposits. The family behind the winery grew grapes for wine and pisco in the province for decades, until in 2013 it built its own winery, which started with a capacity of 12,000 bottles and has kept growing since. Its stated purpose is to make the province's heritage known through wine; the sales office is in Pudahuel, in Santiago.

The climate is warm steppe: clear skies, very dry air, summers of 25 to 30 °C and barely 250 millimeters of rain a year, almost all of it in winter. The soils are colluvial and fluvial, with gravel, sand and silt left by the river. The grapes come from vineyards in different villages of the valley, from La Colonia (410 meters) and El Boldo (480) to Panguesillo (630) and Batuco (1,100), and are picked by hand between March and June. The house bets on grapes rarely seen in still wines, such as Pedro Jiménez, the traditional pisco grape, and the Moscatel de Austria and Moscatel de Alejandría, alongside Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Carménère and Merlot. Its lines are Grabados del Choapa, varietals whose labels evoke figures from the province, such as the guardian owl or the shaman of Chillepín; Cordilleramar, which dedicates each wine to a landmark of its geography, such as the Mallacún, Manquehua and Cañahual hills or the Huentelauquén salt flats; the sparkling Aquelarre, of Pedro Jiménez and Moscatels; and AuCu, a blend of Syrah and Cabernet Franc with two years in barrel. According to the winery, the Descorchados guide singled out the Cordilleramar Blend (2021 edition) and the Cordilleramar Cabernet Franc (2023 edition) as revelation wines, both with 93 points.

The winery receives visitors by prior booking, by email or phone, with a minimum of two people. There are two tours of about 90 minutes that take in the pergola-trained vineyard (parrones), a soil pit (calicata) to see the ground, the winemaking room and the aging cellar, and end with a tasting of three wines paired with local products such as jams, nuts, olives and cheeses: one with the Grabados del Choapa line and another with the Cordilleramar line, for which tickets are also sold in the online shop. For groups of at least four there is Winemaker for a Day (Enólogo por un día), a workshop in which you taste base wines, prepare your own blend and bottle and label it. On the tours, children go free and those over 60 get a 20% discount. The winery has a wine shop but no restaurant or accommodation; in autumn it holds a harvest festival with tastings and workshops (the third was on 2 May 2026), and its wines can also be bought in the online shop, with shipping.