Viña Selentia

The winery

Selentia is the project of the descendants of Emilio Bouchon Poitevin, a winegrower born in a village near Bordeaux who arrived in Chile at 22 and, after founding and running several wineries in central Chile, bought the Viña Angostura estate north of San Fernando, where he planted the Cabernet Sauvignon vines that still bear fruit. His sons Abel and Antonio, trained in agronomy and winemaking, carried on the family business through the company Bouchon Hermanos, and in 1989 the estate passed to Abel's children, who founded Viña Selentia. The family presents itself today as four generations devoted to the land and to wine. In 1999 it built a 6,000-square-meter winery, the result of an international architecture competition, with capacity for two million liters.

The winery has 120 hectares planted in the Angostura and Chorrillos sectors, in the Andean part of the Colchagua Valley, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carménère and Petit Verdot, and harvest is done by hand between March and April. The wine that best sums up its history is 1903, a Cabernet Sauvignon from vines more than 120 years old, massal selection, ungrafted and flood-irrigated, which spends a year in barrel. Bertita, a pure Petit Verdot aged in new French oak, is the house icon. The Enóloga's Choice line brings together MOB, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère and Petit Verdot from a hillside vineyard with 18 months in barrel, and YIDA, a Moscatel de Frontignan fermented and kept eight months on its skins. Selentia Family Edition, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, rounds out the offer. In the online store the wines are sold by the case of six bottles.

Visits revolve around the Chalet, a 1930s manor house surrounded by gardens, steps from the 1903 vineyards. The basic tour, also offered on its own without a tasting, takes in the century-old vines, the exterior of the Chalet, a small museum with QR codes and the botanical garden; the versions with tasting also go down into the underground cellar, where wines more than forty years old are kept, and pour two or three glasses from the different lines. There are three-glass tastings, a private tour with a pairing board and a picnic in the manor-house garden with a bottle from the Enóloga's Choice line. Experiences are paid for in the official website's shop and the date is arranged with the winery by WhatsApp or email; hours are Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 18:30 and weekends from 11:30 to 14:30. Selentia also rents out the Chalet and its gardens for weddings and celebrations of up to 400 people, has a small hostel of its own, and offers a membership club with wines, a coworking space and discounts.