Vinos Mingaco

The winery

Vinos Mingaco is the family winery of Pablo Pedreros and Daniela De Pablo in Checura, a hill village in the dry-farmed country of Itata, in the municipality of Coelemu, about 25 kilometers from the Pacific. Pablo was born in Coelemu, grew up working the land and planted vines alongside his father; before this brand he sold a wine called Piedra Cura in Concepción. Daniela studied art in Santiago and came to the countryside through her interest in healthy food. They have lived together in Checura since 2017, the year of the first vintage under the Mingaco name and label, and are raising their children there today. The word refers to collective work: the winery calls the days when it invites people to help with the harvest or the bottling mingacos.

The vines are head-trained (bush vines), ungrafted and unirrigated, on hills of granitic soil with quartz and clay, at 200 to 300 meters above sea level depending on the source. The winery's technical sheets describe Moscatel de Alejandría and Cinsault more than 50 years old and País more than 120, in plots of 0.1 to 0.3 hectares. The family states that it has farmed regeneratively since 2010 and followed the biodynamic calendar since 2017, with no published certification; in 2024 it helped create the Coompostur cooperative, and in 2025 it built its own biofactory to prepare compost and soil microorganisms. The Moscatel hill burned in February 2023 and, according to the winery, is green again. The wines ferment spontaneously, in lagares (open treading vats) and open tanks, and are grouped into three lines according to how many years each vineyard has been under clean management: Transición, Origen and Tinaja, the last one aged in clay amphorae (tinajas). Its store offers two versions of Moscatel de Alejandría 2022, a 2021 blend of País and Cinsault, a Cinsault Pet Nat and an amphora-aged Cabernet Sauvignon, at CLP 10,000 to 15,000, with shipping within Chile only on orders of more than six bottles; the wines are also sold in the United States, Canada, England and Australia.

The visit and tasting are led by the growers themselves: the tour walks through old ungrafted vines, explains the regenerative management, enters the earth-built cellar and ends with a tasting of their natural wines. Book by WhatsApp 48 hours ahead. It is paid, but the winery publishes no price, days or hours, so ask when you book. On the same hill the family rents out, through Airbnb, an A-frame wooden cabin with an equipped kitchen and a slow-combustion wood stove, with no wifi or television; you park at the cellar and walk up through the vines. The official website does not mention a restaurant; Enoturismo Chile lists group lunches and private dinners, so check before counting on them.