Viña Gonzalez Bastias, Descabezado Pais 2024

100% País (Mission)

Biodynamic, No Sulfur Added, Vegan

Maule, Chile

From the importer-

This 100% estate Pais is from a 200 year old single vineyard in the Maule region. The wine is bright, fresh, and crunchy with notes of raspberry, strawberry, and tart cranberries with a touch of lavender that leads into a refreshing palate of red fruit with an acid driven backbone. This wine is made in a light, glou-glou style that can be served with a light chill.

The terrible floods of the Maule River in 2023 hit Gonzales Bastias hard.  Their vineyards were flooded, although luckily, without damage to the plants, since their advanced age withstand such ocasional disasters.  But their cellar and winery were wrecked.  As a result they felt "headless", and that feeling lends its name to the new wine they made following the tragedy. Descabezado was made in their new winery, built above the hill where the old one stood. It fermented from native yeasts, and macerated three days on the skin before a slower, extended three month fermentation.  Unfined and unfiltered, it shows the loveliest side of Pais, soft on the palate with plenty of berry fruit.  An easy drinking wine showing the versatility of the grape and the high standards of the wines coming from Chile these days.

González Bastías is a town, and a small, family owned winery in western Maule owned and operated by Jose Luís Bastías and Daniela Lorenzo.

Jose’s family planted their 4 hectare vineyard in the early 1800’s and they have been cultivating it ever since. Visiting this vineyard is like travelling back in time: to reach it, you must cross the Maule River by canoe from the local train station between Talca and Constitucion. Jose farms and vinifies biodynamically and without the use of machines; the soil is a mixture of sand and gravel. All the fruit is pressed by hand over bamboo zarandas into open top cement vats; the wines are then aged in either barrels or amphora. All made without manipulation and without the addition of sulfur.

The wines from this unique property are some of the most unique expressions in Chile and are remnants of Chilean ancestry, which is in danger of extinction.