Gustavo Riffo & Lomas de Llahuen
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Gustavo Riffo and his family's Lomas de Llahuen winery are north of Portezuelo, a major center for Pipeño in the central Itata valley. Gustavo has been making wines from his family’s vines for over 10 years. His family has made wine here in this warm and dry area for generations. The family's wines (for which Gustavo is the winemaker) are bottled under the Lomas de Llahuen label; Gustavo also bottles wines under his own name from selected plots that he farms himself. 

​Gustavo's first passion was soccer. A gifted athlete, he was on his way to a professional career and had little interest in the family's vineyards and winemaking. His parents wanted him to study agronomy, but at the time he wanted a different life. When he was 18, his perspective shifted and after working harvest with the family he took a growing interest in wine, grape-growing, and agriculture. This led to studies and harvests abroad. After receiving a government grant to study winemaking and farming, Gustavo spent a harvest with Benziger Family Winery, one of Sonoma’s pioneers of biodynamic farming. Then, he worked in the Jura in France, Italy, and Priorat in Spain. After working in these regions, he was inspired to bring an organic and biodynamic approach to farming back to the family's holdings. 

Converting to organics was a struggle and a source of conflict with the family, but they started the process in 2005. At the same time, Gustavo began making his own wines from plots that he farmed on his own, where he works with biodynamic treatments. With these bottlings he is also able to be more experimental in the cellar, working with old amphoras and long skin contact for the Moscatel and lower sulfur quantities overall. 

Lomas de Llahuen is the name for wines made with the fruit from old vines in Portazuelo that have been in Gustavo Riffo’s family for many years. Gustavo has been making wines with his family’s grapes for more than 10 years, but this is a separate project from his personal wines bottled under his name.

The Wines

A Pelo
100% Moscatel d’Alexandria from a parcel of unirrigated and own-rooted 80-year-old vines. The grapes were destemmed and fermented in old clay amphora with maceration on the skins for 8-12 months.

Vuelta E' Mano Garnacha
​100% Garnacha from an organically farmed single parcel (called San Juan de Dios) of 15-year-old vines planted on granitic clay loam soils. The densely planted and unirrigated plot is at around 120 meters above sea level and faces north. The grapes were destemmed and macerated on the skins and fermented with native yeasts for 15 days in a covered Raulí lagar. When fermentation had finished, it was pressed into a used barrel where the wine rested months before bottling.

Lomas de Llahuen Pipeño
100% País from the family's vines that are roughly 200 years old, densely planted on granitic clay-loam soils, and unirrigated. Winemaking is very traditional: the grapes were destemmed, macerated on their skins during a roughly 2-week fermentation in stainless steel, pressed, and then the wine rested in large Raulí vats for 12 months.

Location

General Info

  • ​Region: Chile
  • Appellation: Valle del Itata
  • Village: Portezuelo
  • Elevation: ​300 meters
  • Climate: Mediterranean
  • Soils: ​Granite & clay
  • Vineyard Land: Gustavo farms 5 hectares of the family's much larger vineyards
  • Farming: Organic
  • Grower: Gustavo Riffo

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