Louis-Antoine Luyt Pipeno Portezuelo Blanco

He may be a native Burgundian, but Louis-Antoine Luyt has quickly become a seminal voice in the fight for independent, terroir driven winemaking in Chile. Luyt has managed to source fruit and rent vines from independent farmers throughout the Maule Valley. Furthermore, his insistence on dry farming, horse plowing, organic viticulture and native yeast/intervention free winemaking are welcome proof that wines outside of Europe can successfully be produced with this work philosophy.

Mainly Torontel + Corinta (Chasselas) + Cristalina (Semillon) + Muscat d’Alexandria from organic, dry-farmed bush vines ranging from 100 to 200 years old on thin, red clay soils rich in decomposed granite, high in the hills of the Portezuelo sub-zone of the small Itata region of Chile. ermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts in open wooden lagares; and macerated for 10-12 days with the skins in wooden tanks called pipas (from which the name “pipeño” is derived).