El Viejo Almacén de Sauzal

The winery

El Viejo Almacén de Sauzal is the winery of agronomist and winegrower Renán Cancino, and it owes its name (“the old general store of Sauzal”) to the place where his parents and grandparents worked and lived. It is in Sauzal, a small village of the dry-farmed interior (secano interior) north of Cauquenes, with a wine tradition that goes back to the Jesuits: the records of the San Luis Gonzaga parish note winemaking in 1682, about a hundred years before the village was founded. His wines carry the Huaso de Sauzal label. Cancino prefers to call them traditional rather than natural, because in the field and in the cellar he does the same things his ancestors did, and the only thing that changes from one year to the next is the weather.

The family vineyard in Sauzal covers about five hectares, according to a visit by the website Wine Anorak published in 2026, and is mostly País, with Cariñena (Carignan) and Garnacha; a Wine Advocate note on the 2016 vintage spoke of nine hectares between Sauzal and Truquilemu and of some 22,000 bottles a year. These are old head-trained vines, closely spaced and unirrigated, so the soil is plowed with horses at the end of winter to keep the moisture from the rains in the ground. No synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or fungicides are used, only sulfur against disease. The grapes are destemmed by hand over a zaranda (a cane screen), ferment on their own with native yeasts in lagares (open treading vats) of Chilean oak and, after about 20 days, move to old barrels. The winery makes three wines: Chilena, from País, with notes of sour cherry; Cariñena, with black fruit; and Garnacha, more austere and floral. It recommends them for country meals, with at least five years of aging, and suggests decanting for anyone who prefers a cleaner wine.

The winery publishes no visits or tours, so ask before you go. Its wines appear on the producer's website at CLP 12,000 a bottle, with no online store: inquiries go by phone, WhatsApp or email, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 18:00. It has also taken its wines to independent wine fairs, such as those at the restaurant Ryoshi in Talca, in 2024 and 2025, and they have reached the United States through the importer Jose Pastor Selections.