The Earthquake, the 100-Year Vine & the Story Hand
Maturana Wines is a family-run boutique winery born from the rubble of the 2010 Chile earthquake — a project that transformed destruction into destiny. Based in San Fernando, deep in the Colchagua Valley, brothers José Ignacio (winemaker, agronomist) and Sebastián (chef, commercial director) have built one of the most awarded and innovative boutique wineries in Chile. Their mission is singular: to rescue the ancient heritage vineyards of central Chile — vines planted around 1910 with varieties like País, Torontel, Semillon, and San Francisco — and craft wines of minimal intervention, maximum terroir, and unforgettable storytelling. José Ignacio spent 15 years as chief winemaker for Casa Silva before quitting in 2014 to bet everything on this family dream. They pay farmers 5 times the market price for their grapes. They ferment in amphoras, concrete eggs, and used French oak. They work with native yeasts, gravity-fed juices, and manual destemming. And their motto says it all: "No vendemos vinos, vendemos historias" — We don't sell wines, we sell stories.
The Earthquake, the Casa Silva Cellar & the Maturana Hand
The story of Maturana Wines begins on 27 February 2010, when the devastating earthquake that struck Chile destroyed the century-old family home of José Ignacio Maturana's parents in San Fernando — a house built with old techniques and Chilean clay tile, reduced to rubble in minutes. For many families, this would have been an ending. For the Maturanas, it was a beginning. "There was no more time to lose," José Ignacio recalls. The family decided to rebuild not just a house, but a destiny — and in the heart of the Colchagua Valley, Maturana Wines was born.
José Ignacio Maturana was born in Santiago on 14 April 1975 and raised in San Fernando, the city where the winery now stands. He studied agronomy at the Universidad de Talca before transferring to the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), where he discovered enology — the perfect intersection of agriculture, travel, and sensory exploration. After graduating, he joined Casa Silva, one of Chile's most prestigious wineries, where he worked under the legendary Mario Geisse for 15 years as chief winemaker, leading the team to major international awards. But in 2014, with four children and a stable salary, he made the terrifying decision to quit. His wife Gloria told him: "You are completely capable. Go ahead." That faith became the foundation of everything.
His brother Sebastián Maturana brought a different but equally essential skill set. A chef by profession, Sebastián had worked as sous-chef and executive chef at The Lodge at Vail in Colorado, then returned to Chile to build the hotel, restaurant, and events programme at Viña Casa Silva from scratch. He had also founded restaurants in Santiago and was named one of Chile's 100 Young Leaders by Wiken magazine in 2009. With an MBA from the Universidad de Chile, Sebastián took charge of commercial strategy, gastronomy, and storytelling. Together with their father Javier, mother María Angélica, and siblings Francisco, Javiera, and Catalina, the Maturana clan built a winery that is literally run by the family — José Ignacio makes the wine, Sebastián sells the stories, Gloria leads tourism, and Javiera runs the gastronomic programme. It is "attended by its own owners" in the most authentic sense.
"No vendemos vinos, vendemos historias."
— Hermanos Maturana
Colchagua, Maule, Choapa & the Heritage Hand
The Colchagua Valley is the beating heart of Chilean wine tourism — a region 150 kilometres south of Santiago that was named Wine Region of the Year by Wine Enthusiast in 2005. But while most producers in Colchagua chase volume with Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere, the Maturana brothers went in the opposite direction. They began hunting for the forgotten vineyards — small, family-run plots of heritage varieties that the industrial wine boom had passed by. Their search took them beyond Colchagua into the Maule Valley and as far north as Choapa, building a network of smallholder farmers who had preserved their ancestral vines against all odds.
The vineyards they work with are dry-farmed, bush-trained, and extraordinarily old — many dating to 1910 or earlier. The País vines at Paredones were planted in 1910. The Semillon at Parellón comes from vines planted in 1928. The Torontel at Loncomilla was planted in 1938. Some parcels are over 100 years old, tended by the same families for generations. The soils are extraordinarily diverse: granite, quartz, red clay, schist, and alluvial deposits — a geological patchwork that gives each wine a distinct fingerprint. Because phylloxera never reached Chile, many of these vines are ungrafted, rooted directly in their native soil. The farmers never used chemicals; the viticulture is organic by tradition.
The Maturana model is built on fair trade and long-term relationships. They pay their growers 5 times the market price per kilogram of grapes — a radical commitment in an industry that has historically exploited small producers. They work with farmers in Paredones, Litueche, Loncomilla, Marchigüe, San Clemente, Illapel, and beyond, creating a horizontal growth model that unites heritage vine growers, grape processors, and global distribution. Before the Maturana project, many of these growers were on the verge of pulling their ancient vines to plant pine or eucalyptus — the commodity crops that have devastated Chile's rural landscapes. The Maturana brothers have not just saved vineyards; they have saved a way of life.
San Fernando is the city where José Ignacio grew up, where the 2010 earthquake destroyed his parents' home, and where the Maturana winery now stands on the outskirts of town — surrounded by water, forests, and a decorative vineyard of tintoreras. The new winery was built from nothing during the pandemic, with family money and relentless determination. It is not just a production facility but a living experience centre: visitors eat under the pergola, taste beside the tanks, and sleep on the property. For the Maturanas, San Fernando is not a wine tourism hub but a hometown — the place where a family of agricultural roots became the first generation of winemakers, building something from scratch for their children and grandchildren to inherit.
Paredones is a coastal area of Colchagua, just 12 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean, where the Maturana brothers source some of their most extraordinary fruit. The Semillon vines at Parellón were planted in 1928 on granitic soils with quartz, dry-farmed and bush-trained. The País vineyard here was planted in 1910 and is the source for the Pa-Tel — a field blend of País, Moscatel, Semillon, and Riesling grown together and fermented together. The maritime influence creates a cool, misty microclimate that preserves acidity and freshness in a valley otherwise known for heat. For José Ignacio, Paredones represents the future of Chilean coastal viticulture: old vines, granite, and the Pacific breeze.
Loncomilla is in the Maule Valley, where the Maturanas found their Torontel vines planted in 1938 and their San Francisco vines — the same variety as Negramol in the Canary Islands, brought by Franciscan monks. These bush-trained, dry-farmed parcels are farmed by smallholder families who have preserved them for generations. The soils are a mixture of granitic alluvium and clay, and the climate is slightly cooler than Colchagua. The Torontel from Loncomilla is the source of Naranjo — the orange wine that was named by The Times as one of the 6 best orange wines in the world. For the Maturanas, Loncomilla is proof that Maule's heritage goes far beyond País — it is a repository of lost varieties waiting to be rediscovered.
Maturana viticulture is a commitment to the old ways. The vines are dry-farmed — no irrigation, ever. They are bush-trained — head-trained gobelet style, low to the ground, resistant to wind. They are farmed organically by tradition — the old farmers never used chemicals, and the Maturanas encourage this practice, managing vineyards with compost, manual labour, and respect for the natural cycle. The yields are tiny, the fruit is concentrated, and the results are wines of extraordinary depth and authenticity. This is not modern viticulture; it is viticulture as family heirloom — passed from father to son, from farmer to winemaker, from 1910 to today.
Ancestral, Amphora & the Gravity Hand
José Ignacio Maturana's winemaking philosophy is distilled in a single word: authenticity. After 15 years in the industrial wine world, he rejected the formula of over-extracted, oak-heavy, homogeneous wines and returned to something older and more honest. The goal is not to manipulate the grape but to showcase the terroir — to let the vineyard, the variety, and the vintage speak without interference. This is minimal-intervention winemaking with a distinctly Chilean soul: ancestral methods, native yeasts, gravity-fed juices, and a refusal to use mechanical equipment during harvest and fermentation.
The cellar is a fascinating hybrid of ancient and modern. All harvests are done manually in small baskets to preserve grape integrity. All work during fermentation is done by hand — including manual destemming. Juices are drawn by gravity; no pumps are used to manipulate the must. Fermentation is driven by indigenous yeasts. Sulphites are minimal or absent — used only at bottling when necessary, and often not at all. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered, carrying their natural sediment and haze as proof of their authenticity. The cellar arsenal includes amphoras (tinajas), concrete eggs, used French oak barrels, and stainless steel tanks — each vessel chosen to match the personality of the grape and the vineyard.
What emerges is a portfolio of extraordinary diversity and personality. The Naranjo — Torontel fermented for 9 months on skins in concrete eggs — is textural, aromatic, and globally celebrated. The Parellon — Semillon from 1928 vines with partial skin contact — is mineral, waxy, and crystalline. The Pa-Tel — a field blend of País, Moscatel, Semillon, and Riesling grown together — is silky, bright, and unmistakably coastal. The MW — their icon Carmenere — is concentrated, sleek, and chalky. And the Oxi — an oxidative Viognier — is bold, marmalade-scented, and structured like a red. This is winemaking for truth, terroir, and the rescue of Chile's heritage varieties.
Ancestral, Amphora & the Gravity Covenant
The guiding principle of José Ignacio's cellar is that the winemaker is a mere transformer — the protagonist is the vineyard. The ancient, dry-farmed vines provide healthy, complex grapes with indigenous yeast populations. The small-basket harvest preserves berry integrity. The manual destemming ensures gentle extraction. The gravity-fed transfer eliminates pump trauma. The amphora and concrete egg vessels allow for natural temperature regulation and oxygen exchange. The indigenous yeast captures the microbial soul of each valley. The minimal sulphur preserves the wine's living character. And the unfined, unfiltered bottling keeps the texture, the phenolics, and the ancestral memory intact. The cellar is not a factory but a family workshop — where a former Casa Silva winemaker applies the lessons of 15 years of industrial experience to produce wines that are defiantly, beautifully human.
Naranjo, MW, Parellon, Pa-Tel & the Story Hand
The Maturana portfolio is one of the most varied and entertaining in Chile — a constantly evolving collection that spans orange wines, oxidative whites, heritage reds, field blends, classic varietals, and ancestral amphora wines. Production is divided between the Maturana line (premium, terroir-driven, minimal intervention) and Puente Austral (more accessible, classic styles). The Maturana line itself is a map of Chile's deepest viticultural roots: each wine is named after a person, place, or story, and each bottle is produced in tiny quantities — often 1,000 to 6,000 bottles. The wines are exported to 26 countries and have received accolades from Descorchados, The Times, James Suckling, and the Latin American Wine Guide.
The Story, the 100-Year Vine & the Family Hand
Maturana Wines is not merely a winery; it is a family manifesto — the story of how a devastating earthquake became the catalyst for a new Chilean wine culture. In an era when Chilean wine was defined by industrial scale, anonymous bulk production, and the erasure of smallholder farming, the Maturana brothers demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from a 100-year-old Semillon vine on a granitic coastal hillside, hand-destemmed by a winemaker who once made 300,000-case vintages for a corporate giant. It is largely thanks to them that heritage varieties like Torontel, San Francisco, and old-vine Semillon now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same vineyards that industrial Chile tried to forget have become, through their work, some of the most exciting and awarded expressions in the country.
The legacy of Maturana Wines is the legacy of the first-generation family hand in Chilean viticulture. José Ignacio is not a typical Chilean winemaker: he did not inherit a large estate, he did not chase Parker points with over-extracted Cabernet, and he did not build his brand on supermarket placement. He is an agronomist who quit his job at the height of his corporate career, bet everything on his wife's faith, and spent a decade building direct relationships with smallholder growers who were on the verge of pulling their 1910 vines. Sebastián is not a typical commercial director: he is a chef who understands that wine is part of a larger story of food, family, and hospitality. Together, they have created a horizontal model that pays farmers 5 times the market price, exports to 26 countries, and produces wines that are as diverse as they are personal.
The future of the project is tied to the future of heritage viticulture and family farming in Chile — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the most famous appellations but from the most committed guardians of ancient vines. As Naranjo continues to set the benchmark for Chilean orange wine on the world stage, as MW proves that Carmenere can be an icon of elegance rather than over-extraction, as Parellon demonstrates that old-vine Semillon is one of Chile's greatest hidden treasures, and as Pa-Tel shows that field blends of heritage varieties can be silky, joyful, and profound, the Maturana brothers remain what they have always intended to be: a family from San Fernando who don't sell wines — they sell stories. Stories of earthquakes and rebirth. Stories of 100-year-old vines saved from the bulldozer. Stories of a father who planted Syrah in his patio and a son who ate the grapes. Stories of a Chile that is deeper, older, and more beautiful than the industrial export machine ever allowed the world to see.
"Nunca dejar de sorprender." — Never stop surprising.
— Maturana Winery motto