Cooperativa Los Notros

The winery

The Cooperativa Campesina Los Notros was born in late September 1969, when more than four hundred farmers from Nacimiento organized to produce wine on the sunny slopes that run down from the Nahuelbuta range toward the Biobío River. They bought a plot on the edge of town, on the road to Santa Juana, and machinery, and even dreamed of exporting, but the project stalled for more than fifteen years. In the late 1980s the cooperative resumed operations with a hundred or so members, and in the following decade it set aside part of its land for the Nacimiento bus terminal, which today bears its name. A few years ago, driven by leaders who as children had gone with their parents to the founding meetings, the cooperative decided to return to its roots and take up wine again.

Today it brings together some forty members and around twenty small farmers' dry-farmed vineyards. By hand, with scythe and shovel, they have rescued century-old vines that had been swallowed by scrub and forestry plantations in Millapoa, on the banks of the Biobío, and in La Palmilla, beside the Nicodahue River, on slopes so steep that one of their vineyards is called the Viña Heroica (Heroic Vineyard); they have cleared about 15 hectares and continue to recover others, even near Cerro Catiray, an old Mapuche stronghold. Almost all of it is País, the heritage grape of the area. Their wines are presented under the name Viña Heroica de la Frontera, such as the red Vino Ancestral and the Nacimiento del Chacolí, and the Rosé de País 2025, made with advice from the Universidad Católica, won a gold medal at Catad'Or 2025. With support from Corfo and Sercotec, at the end of 2025 the cooperative had nearly finished a processing room with stainless steel tanks next to the terminal.

The visit, called Experiencia Comunitaria del Vino Ancestral (the Ancestral Wine community experience), takes you to the members' century-old vineyards in Millapoa and La Palmilla, passes through historic places in the municipality and includes a tasting and sale of the cooperative's wines. There are no published prices or dates: it is arranged with the cooperative by phone or email. Its headquarters are on Avenida Julio Hemmelmann, next to the bus terminal, and the vineyards lie in rural areas outside town. Together with the Municipality, the cooperative also organizes the Fiesta del Vino Ancestral de Nacimiento, a showcase of País wines from Biobío vineyards with a guided tasting, local cooking and crafts, which in its latest editions was held in November or December next to the terminal.