Refugio - 2018 - Julio Donoso

100% Pinot Noir, from young vines farmed biodynamically and planted in 2005 on a seven-hectare parcel of red clay soils situated between 300 and 387 metres altitude in the Casablanca Valley. The soils are ploughed with horses, and the grapes harvested by hand, with sorting in the vineyard and in the cellar. Vinification involves a cold pre-fermentation maceration (without cooling equipment), the use of indigenous yeasts, gentle pressing, and 11 months of maturation in egg-shaped cement vats that allow the wine to circulate inside naturally. No fining, no filtering, and no sulphur! 1567 bottles produced.
Montsecano is a collaboration between two friends. The winemaker and producer of Alsatian wines, André Ostertag provided the wine concept, where biodynamic and natural winemaking play a key role in the final result. Photographer Julio Donoso is the head of the winery that produces about 17 thousand bottles per year, considering all three wines. Strongly bonded to France, he decided from the very beginning he wanted to plant Pinot Noir, back in 2005. Montsecano is an expression of its terroir, a main character within the Chilean winemaking scene, interpreting the climate and granitic soil of the Chilean Coastal Mountain Range, away from fashion and mass market wine trends. “The main principle and basis of Montsecano´s work is the vineyard, pruning and soil management,” recalls Julio Donoso. “We highly respect the place, we keep plants healthy and nourished only with compost and biodynamic preparations, which provides a greater meaning to the work we want to do in the long term.”