Elqui Wines

The winery

Elqui Wines is the family project of Steffan Jorgensen, a Danish-born winemaker who was previously in charge of production at Bergevin Lane in Walla Walla, Washington State, and Pamela Núñez, a winemaker trained at the Universidad de Santiago. The couple settled in the Elqui Valley with the idea of making red wines with identity on the northern frontier of Chilean wine, and their first vintage was 2011. In the early years they made their wine at a pisco distillery in the valley; in 2018 they launched their own bottling line and were shipping wine to the United States and China.

They work with grapes from three areas. El Maitén, in the municipality of La Serena, an old riverbed of stony, sandy soils that catches the cool winds off the Pacific, is the source of their single-vineyard Syrah, the house's flagship wine: the 2017 vintage earned 93 points from Wine Review Online in 2024. El Tambo, in Vicuña, is an estate vineyard that supplies the Carménère, picked there very late, around mid-June, once the vines have already dropped their leaves; Peralillo, also in Vicuña, yields a Malbec planted on a slope from a massal selection. From these grapes they make Syrah, Carménère, Pinot Noir, a blend of Carménère, Syrah and Malbec and a rosé of Pinot Noir, Syrah and Carménère; early on they also made whites from Moscatel and Pedro Jiménez. Aging takes place in French, American and Hungarian oak barrels.

The winery does not currently publish any visitor offer. Its website is blank and its Instagram account, @elquiwines, has not been updated since May 2021, so it was not possible to confirm whether it is still producing or receiving the public; travel guides from a few years ago mentioned private tours by prior booking. Before planning a visit, write to contact@elquiwines.cl. Its wines have been sold mostly abroad, chiefly in the United States, and no shop in Chile was found that carries them.