La Roncière

The winery

La Roncière dates from 1949, when Fernando Orueta Ruiz de Eguiláz made his first harvest in Chile, in Graneros, in the Cachapoal Valley. Three generations later it is run by the brothers Alejandro, José Antonio and Andrés Orueta. For decades its wines came from Cachapoal and Colchagua, until in 2008 the family began looking for a cooler place, with the warming of the Central Valley in mind. Four years of searching led them to Idahue, in the municipality of Licantén, beside the Mataquito River and 25 kilometers from the Pacific, on the coast of the Curicó Valley. The first experimental harvest was in 2014, the wines went on sale from 2016, and in 2018 the place was recognized as the Licantén Denomination of Origin, where, according to the winery, its vineyard remains the only one.

Fundo Idahue is a 200-hectare property, with some 130 planted on rolling hills and divided into small blocks, with red grapes only: Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Syrah, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Carignan. A soil study with 140 pits four meters deep revealed a mosaic of licorella (slaty schist), shale, maicillo (decomposed granite) and clay-loam sectors. The winery translates the name of the place, from the indigenous language, as “place of magic stones”, and that is what its Carignan is called. The family also has vineyards in Graneros, in Santa Elena, on the Andean slopes of Colchagua, and in Victoria, in the Malleco Valley, source of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir of the Selva Oscura line and of its sparkling wine. The winemaking and aging cellar is in Graneros, with small fermentation tanks and French oak barrels. The range runs from Cantoalba and Moussai to Licantén, Quirón, Piedras Mágicas and Selva Oscura, and has Solares as its icon wine.

To see the vineyard you have to go to Fundo Idahue, at kilometer 78 of Ruta J-60, about 8 kilometers east of the town of Licantén, beside a reservoir with large letters spelling out the winery's name. La Roncière does not publish a tourism program, with prices or visiting hours. What its website does show is a gallery titled Visitas, with a group on a wooden terrace facing the vines, a tasting of the Licantén wines overlooking the vineyard and a lunch in a quincho (barbecue pavilion) with log tables. It also gives hours for the estate of Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00 and Saturdays from 8:00 to 13:00, and the phone number +56 9 7187 3461. Call before traveling and ask whether they receive the public and on what terms. The head office, in Rancagua, and the Graneros cellar, about 150 kilometers away in a straight line and already in Cachapoal, are offices and a production plant, and the website offers no visits there. Wines are bought in the winery's online store, from CLP 8,000 for a bottle of Cantoalba, with courier delivery.