Tinta Tinto

The winery

Tinta Tinto is the winery of Roberto Carrancá and Javiera Fuentes, set up in the garage of their house in Algarrobo, on the coast of the Valparaíso Region. They started in 2010 with 600 kilos of grapes and today make around 12,000 bottles a year, a figure they have no plans to push much higher: it is a family project that the two of them run with help from their daughters. Each wine comes from a single block of a specific vineyard: Tapihue and the surroundings of Casablanca for the Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Syrah and Pinot Noir; El Mariscal, in La Pintana (Maipo Alto), for a Cabernet Sauvignon planted in 1994; and a century-old dry-farmed vineyard in Yumbel, in the Biobío, for the País. Algarrobo belongs to the San Antonio Valley, although much of the fruit comes in from Casablanca.

The house works with as little intervention as possible. The grapes are picked by hand, ferment spontaneously with native yeasts and get no additives; the wines are neither fined nor filtered, rest in second-use barrels or in unlined concrete vats and are bottled by gravity. The Cabernet Sauvignon spends 17 months in barrel and the Syrah 15, while the Pinot Noir is kept nine months in concrete, with no wood. The Piel line brings together a Chardonnay macerated 36 hours on its skins and fermented in an egg-shaped vat, and a sulfite-free País that the producer presents as a natural wine. Big Fish, the Sauvignon Blanc born in 2017 and today their second best-selling label, is made at a rented winery in Casablanca, near the vineyard. The labels are painted and lettered by hand. They sell mostly to restaurants and specialty shops in the Valparaíso Region, serve direct customers in Santiago and other regions, and export close to 40% of production to Brazil, England, Denmark, Canada, France and Austria.

The winery is at Las Tinajas 2558 and has a cellar door: on Instagram the family invites you to stop by for wine between 10:00 and 19:00, and offers products to put together a picoteo (a snack board), such as homemade cured pork loin, goat cheese, smoked trout and home-baked bread. According to Enoturismo Chile, the owners lead a tour of the facilities in which they explain their way of working, ending with a tasting of their wines; they also take groups. Book 24 hours ahead at +56 9 9545 2366; there is no published price, so confirm the conditions when you call. In some seasons they hold gatherings at the winery, such as the “Playa Tinta Tinto” weekends during the winter holidays, with fire, wine and conversation. There is no restaurant or accommodation, and the winery has no online shop: you can write to hola@tintatinto.cl or get in touch by phone or Instagram.