Vino La Joda

The winery

Vino La Joda is the project of Daniela Meruvia and Jorge Carrancá, a couple of winemakers who met while working at wineries in the Colchagua Valley. In 2016 they took on a plot in the Cajón de San Francisco, a narrow valley in the municipality of San Esteban, in Los Andes province, deep in the mountains, and started making wine there on a small scale. Daniela's Bolivian roots show throughout the house: their first wine is called Ajayu, an Aymara word for soul and energy, and the labels drawn by illustrator Pablo del Cielo borrow colors and characters from the Andean carnival. In 2026 the project turns ten and its bottles already travel to France, the United States and Canada.

They work with minimal intervention: only sulfur in the vineyard, barely a small dose of sulfites in the cellar, hand harvesting, and wines bottled unfiltered, with their lees, something the winery repeats like a motto. Besides their own plot, they buy grapes from small growers in the Aconcagua Valley whom they advise, all within a radius of about 20 kilometers. The reds include Ajayu, a Carménère with a year in barrel whose 2021 vintage won a gold medal at the Catad'Or 2023 competition, and El Franc, a fresh Cabernet Franc; the same grape gives LA La, a limited-edition rosé. The most festive line is Mejor Ser Que Parecer, natural sparkling wines or pét-nats made by the ancestral method, from Moscatel Rosada (also gold at Catad'Or 2023) and from Merlot. Everything is sold through their online shop, with free delivery to the Metropolitan and Valparaíso regions on orders from CLP 80,000.

The winery receives visitors by booking only, Wednesday to Sunday, and every experience is private. The main one is Ven a La Joda: a tour of about two hours through the vineyard and the small cellar, ending with a tasting of three wines led by the winemakers themselves and served with a platter of local products. For groups of 8 to 12 there is El Apurado, an express tasting of two glasses, and for couples, Un día en La Joda, which combines the tour, a house sandwich and a night in the winery's mountain refuge, a wooden dome with a terrace facing the Andes and access to a pool, also rented out on Airbnb. There is no restaurant open to the public. Book through the website form, by WhatsApp or by buying the tour in the online shop.