Pipeño: A Chilean tradition
Chilean wine has had a French accent since Bordeaux wine makers fled to Chile to escape the phylloxera vineyard plague in the late 1800s.
But Chile’s Spanish colonizers started growing grapes and making wine more than three centuries before that, after the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia fought his way through fierce opposition from the native Mapuche in 1540 to found and fortify the village that would become Santiago.
Today we’re talking about Pipeño, an ancient Chilean wine.
Are you a fan of old and obscure wine styles?
The Christian missionaries who came with the conquistadors had a plan to convert the people they perceived as heathens, and planted grapes to make sacramental wine … and, surely, for the new residents to enjoy with their meals.They planted the grape at Spanish missions that spread along America’s Pacific coast from Chile northward to California, and named the variety “Mission” in an obvious if not highly creative choice.
This was, and remains, a sturdy, hardy variety that thrives and bears productively even in the hot, arid conditions that prevailed in Spanish America. The grape thrived, and remains a steadfast source of inexpensive jug wines in California’s hot Central Valley.
Back in Chile, where the grape became known as País (“country” or “land”), it remains one of the country’s most planted varieties. It may lack the fancy reputation of Cabernet Sauvignon, and little of it gets exported. But it remains popular as an ingredient not only in bulk wine but in good, tasty table wines intended for enjoyment without a major investment.
I talked about País in a January 2024 column, Mission: A taste of wine history including a tasting report on a good Chilean País that’s still available in the $15 range: Bouchon Maule Valley País Viejo.
David Marcel is the producer and winemaker of Viña Maitia with his Chilean wife Loreto in the Maule Valley of Chile. Marcel comes from the French Basque Countr. He was one of the first winemakers in Chile to succeed in the production of quality, craft Pipeño. Photo from importer Skurnik Wines & Spirits.
This week, though, I found something even better on my local wine shop’s natural wine shelf: Viña Maitia Aupa Pipeño. This is a crisp, fascinating, and food-friendly light red wine made from 80% País and 20% Carignan in the Pipeño process, a traditional method of winemaking in Chile that dates back to the late 1500s.
Viña Maitia’s Pipeño, called Aupa, is grown in a 25-acre dry-farmed vineyard of 120-year-old vines in the Secano Interior section of Chile’s Maule valley, where a lot of old País vines still grow in its dry, cool, Mediterranean climate.
I’ll refer you to Amanda Barnes’s excellent Ultimate guide to País wine, Pipeño & Criolla in Chile for the full story on Pipeño.
For the short version, though, here’s her summary:
Typically Pipeño is made from either just País grapes or more often a field blend of both white and red grapes from old vines (usually Criolla-dominant). The grapes are destemmed by hand using a homemade local bamboo (coligüe) destemmer, called a zaranda, which looks a bit like a bamboo mat and sits over the fermentation vat. The crushed grapes and juice fall into the vat underneath and are crushed by foot and left to ferment. The vats are usually open-topped and made of the native raulí beechwood, although modern Pipeño producers might use plastic bins or whatever they have available. The wine is often aged in old pipas – large pipe-shaped vats made from native raulí wood too – for just a short time before it goes into the bottle, damajuana or a five-litre plastic bottle.
It’s a table wine for every day, meant to be drunk up before the next vintage, and, says Barnes, “These wines are rustic and simple but they tell a story about the families that make them and the villages they are from. … Pipeño is a quintessentially Chilean wine; one that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world and has been made by the same families for their own table-side pleasure generation after generation. Viva Pipeño!”
I’ll drink to that, and you can, too! Here’s my report.
Today’s Tasting Report
Viña Maitia 2023 Secano Interior (Maule Valley) Aupa Pipeño ($16.99)
A throwback to Chile’s wine foundations, Viña Maitia Aupa Pipeño is a traditional blend of 80% País (Mission) with 20% Carignan made in the 400-year-old Chilean pipeño process. Ruby color, clear and rather light, it has a fresh, appealing scent of red cherries, raspberries, and pomegranate, with subtle notes of mint and fennel. All this carries over in a bright and juicy flavor that’s thirst-quenching and tart, with subtle cherry-berry character lingering in a long finish. 12% alcohol. U.S. importer: Brazos Wine Imports LLC, Brooklyn, N.Y. (March 5, 2025)
FOOD MATCH: Grilled steaks, chicken, or charcuterie would be a natural match, as would cheese dishes and casual fare like pizza, tomato-sauced pasta, or a pot of spicy, brothy red beans.
WHEN TO DRINK: Drink up the current vintage. The 2023 is delicious now, but it’s not a candidate for cellaring.
VALUE:
It’s a decent dinner wine at my local $18 price and Wine-Searcher.com’s $15 average U.S. retail price. Caution: Some $4.50 Wine-Searcher listings are actually 250ml cans.
WEB LINK:
Here’s a fact sheet on this wine from Brazos Imports.
FIND THIS WINE ONLINE:
Check prices and find vendors for Viña Maitia Aupa Pipeño on Wine-Searcher.com at this Wine-Searcher link.
Read about Chile’s Maule Valley and browse a variety of its wines at this Wine-Searcher link.
Find the wines you want
Explore Wine-Searcher
Wine-Searcher.com is the place to go online if you want to find where to buy a particular wine that interests you. What’s more, Wine-Searcher.com offers so much more. It’s well worth a visit just to discover its many features, including its popular list of the world’s Top 10 Best Value Wines.
Good wines we’ve tried under $10.99!
Want tips to still more good, inexpensive wines? Here are Wine-Searcher links to vendors and prices for a bunch more wines for $10.99 or less that I’ve told you about in recent years. In some cases, the prices may have risen over the $10.99 mark since I reviewed them, but they should still be excellent bargains. Please tell us about your favorites!
Sponsor the Wine Advisor.
Support The 30 Second Wine Advisor and help us pay the rent while reaching 25,000 dedicated readers with your sponsorship message in this space, at the top of this E-letter, and on our social media. If you’re an established business in wine, food, and similar ventures, there’s no better way to focus your message toward an audience that comes here for just those topics. See our Sponsorship Page, or email Robin Garr for more information.
Wine Forum and Social Media
You’re always welcome to drop by our WineLovers Discussion Group, the Internet’s first and most civil online community. Discussions are open for public viewing, but you must register to post. To request registration, please contact me at wine@wineloverspage.com, tell me your name, mention the Wine Advisor, and briefly say why you’d like to participate in the forum. Sorry about the minor red tape, but this is our simple, low-tech way to deter spammers and bots.
I’d also be delighted to have you visit and “like” our WineLovers Facebook Page.
If you haven’t become a full subscriber yet, I’d love to have your support. Click here for information on our paid-tier edition. Our free-to-all edition featuring a quality wine for $20 or less will return in its biweekly cycle next week.
Read more articles from The 30 Second Wine Advisor
Previous Issue: « Loving wine, generationally