OWM Wines

The winery

OWM stands for Own Wine Makers, the project through which cousins José Antonio Bravo and Jaime Núñez set out to make their own wine. The idea came up in 2011, on a trip through Argentina and Chile, and that same year they aged a first Carménère in a barrel of just 80 liters. Bravo is an agronomist and winemaker trained at the Universidad de Chile who worked at Concha y Toro, Undurraga and Haras de Pirque, was head winemaker at Bodega Tapiz in Mendoza, spent time at Kendall-Jackson in California and did five seasons at Emiliana in charge of Los Robles. Núñez is an agricultural engineer from the Universidad Católica with a postgraduate degree in viticulture, and the fourth generation of a farming family that works a property of some 400 hectares in Santa Cruz. In 2013 they bottled the first 1,147 bottles of OWM Hand Made at someone else's winery, and in 2014 they built their own inside a farm shed on the estate: a cube of adobe reclaimed from the wall of the farm's oldest cellar, which collapsed in the 2010 earthquake, set on a secondhand iron frame and fitted with a raulí (native beech) door rescued from a demolition. Since 2016 they have belonged to MOVI, Chile's Movement of Independent Winemakers, and in 2018 Decanter magazine named them among six Colchagua producers to watch.

The grapes come from the vineyard at Fundo Panamá, in the area known as the Panamá valley, some 12 km southwest of Santa Cruz. It is a dry valley with coastal influence, with north-facing slopes at around 130 meters above sea level and colluvial soils of granitic origin that get harder the higher you climb. Carménère, Petit Verdot, Petite Sirah, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec and Merlot grow there, joined since 2020 by Cabernet Franc, Marselan and Touriga Nacional. Harvest is by hand and the winemaking aims to intervene as little as possible: almost everything ferments with native yeasts in small vessels with punch-downs or pump-overs done by hand, the grapes are pressed manually, the wine is racked by gravity into French barrels and bottled unfiltered. In 2018 they reached 12,000 bottles, spread today across five lines: OWM Hand Made, a blend of several grapes that changes with every harvest; Contao, lots of fewer than 1,500 bottles such as the Carménère or the Tempranillo with Cabernet Sauvignon; Divino Petit, half Petite Sirah and half Petit Verdot; Pillo de Panamá, a red of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petit Verdot that in its 2024 vintage was aged only in steel; and Marianena, the icon Carménère, whose name combines those of the two partners' mothers. The 2021 edition of Marianena was a farewell to the estate's oldest block, 21 years old, which was to be replaced with Malbec. In the online store the bottles range from CLP 9,500 to CLP 45,000.

The owners themselves host the visit, and there is no fixed schedule: you arrange it in advance by WhatsApp, phone, email or the form on the website. The tour takes place in the small adobe barrel room, which doubles as the tasting room: you taste wines of different grapes straight from the barrel while talking about how they are made, and at the end each visitor puts together their own blend, which the group then tastes blind. It lasts two and a half to three hours, costs CLP 27,500 per person (USD 35) and is offered in Spanish and English. On its visits page the winery also proposes a personalized wine program, in which you buy a barrel, take part in the harvest and the blending, and receive the bottled wine at home. The last stretch of the road is unpaved from Ruta I-72, near Los Maitenes, so ask for directions when you book. The online store ships throughout Chile, in about four working days to the Metropolitan Region and about six to the rest of the country.