Viña Dagaz

The winery

Dagaz is the personal project of Marco Puyo, an agronomist and winemaker trained at the Universidad Católica who spent 26 years at big Chilean wineries: he was head winemaker at Los Vascos, the Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) house in Colchagua, and director of winemaking at the San Pedro Tarapacá group, where he made wines such as Altaïr, Cabo de Hornos and Sideral. He had been roaming Colchagua since 1994, and in 2005 he stopped at Pumanque, in the dry-farmed country (secano) near the coast; the following year he joined the planting of a 39-hectare vineyard, and from 2009 he vinified there, by hand, one or two barrels per harvest. In 2015 he founded the winery with Patricio Gómez-Barris, third generation of a family of cork makers, and in 2018 he left San Pedro to devote himself to it alone. The name is that of a rune meaning the start of a new path, and its red stroke is the symbol on the labels. The first wine, from the 2016 harvest, was a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Carménère and Syrah.

The Viñedo Pumanque, owned by the company Agrícola Pumanque, lies in the Colchagua Costa D.O. (appellation), 34 km from the Pacific in a straight line and about 238 m above sea level. It was planted in 2006 on rolling hills and slopes, on vertical trellises at high density, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Syrah and Petit Verdot over deep, permeable granite soils strewn with quartz stones. Cold breezes off the Pacific, chilled by the Humboldt Current, and a difference of some 20 °C between day and night stretch out ripening in a Mediterranean climate of dry summers. The team mapped the property by measuring the soil's electromagnetic conductivity and digging soil pits, and vinifies each sector separately to pick the best of each. From there come Tierras de Pumanque, the flagship blend, the Kolwe Cabernet Sauvignon and the Granito Estate line, of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère. The catalog is rounded out with grapes from other dry-farmed areas: Itatino, a Cinsault from the Itata Valley; Rayen de Itata, a Chardonnay launched with the 2024 harvest; and Vigno, a Carignan from vines over 30 years old in Sauzal, in the Maule, which belongs to the Viñadores de Carignan group.

Dagaz publishes no visits or wine tourism program: its website offers no tours, and the gatherings at Pumanque recounted in its news section are days with importers, critics and sommeliers. The most direct way to get to know its wines is through sales handled by Úrsula González by email (ugonzalez@dagazwines.com) or phone (+56 9 6248 0680). They can also be found in wine stores such as El Mundo del Vino, and the list of stockists on the website, last updated in 2021, names shops and restaurants in Santiago, Viña del Mar, Santa Cruz and Pichilemu. Outside Chile they have reached Brazil, the United States, China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom, where Condor Wines imports them.