The Earthquake, the Fermentation & the Mingaco Hand
Mingaco is the regenerative family winery of Pablo Pedreros and Daniela De Pablo Mendoza in Checura — a tiny village in the Itata Valley where until the 1990s almost none of the residents had electricity. Pablo was born here, grew up making wine with his father and grandfather on the same land where he lives now, and after the devastating 2010 earthquake walked for an entire day from Concepción back to Checura to begin again. Daniela found her way to biodynamic farming through creative arts, world travel, and a quest for holistic nutrition. They met through fermentation — she was teaching a workshop on sauerkraut and kombucha; he was the winemaker invited by a mutual friend. Today, they farm 3 hectares of Moscatel de Alejandría from Pablo's family vineyards — the oldest parcel over 100 years old — plus ½ hectare of 120+ year old País and ½ hectare of Cinsault from neighbouring growers. They practice regenerative agriculture since 2010, follow the biodynamic calendar since 2017, use the JADAM method of organic agriculture, and plant up to 100 native trees each year to combat the eucalyptus monoculture. Their home is built from the red clay of their hills. Their presses and fermentations happen mostly outdoors. And Pablo has become so attuned to the biodynamic rhythms that he can tell whether it's a root, leaf, or fruit day simply by tasting his wine.
The Village, the Earthquake & the Pedreros Hand
Pablo Pedreros was born in Checura — a village so small that to call it a village is almost a stretch; it is more a grouping of houses along the Itata River in the Secano Interior of the Itata Valley. He grew up in a world without electricity, making wine alongside his father and grandfather in the same tradition as most families in the valley: "You make wine in March and April, you sell or drink it through New Year's, and then you have all your tanks empty so you make more in the spring." His childhood was inextricable from the rhythms of seasons and growth — sewing seeds, harvesting grains, working with the family's horses, and learning winemaking not from books but from the hands of his elders.
In 2004, Pablo moved to the nearby city of Concepción for a tough six years that culminated in the magnitude 8.8 earthquake of February 2010. When the dust settled, Pablo packed his backpack and walked for an entire day back to his childhood home in Checura. He would spend the next five years shedding the effects of hard city life and reconnecting with the natural world. During these recovery years, he began to detox not only his own body but his land — cutting out chemicals and adopting a fully organic practice. In 2015, his first wines were ready for bottling: a País and a Cinsault that he named Piedra Cura — "healing stone." Every Friday, he travelled to Concepción to sell his small batches, often getting paid in books on agriculture and fermentation rather than cash. "He spent all his wine money on books!" recounts his wife Daniela.
Daniela De Pablo Mendoza grew up in a city one hour from Checura. After studying creative arts in Santiago and Melbourne, she travelled the world for years before a quest for better nutrition and "intensive detox focused on body and soul" led her into holistic and regenerative agriculture. She was making sauerkraut and kombucha and teaching a workshop on detox and fermentation at a friend's restaurant when Pablo was invited to attend. The literary coincidence that sealed their bond: Pablo was halfway through reading The Art of Fermentation and Daniela Wild Fermentation — both by Sandor Katz. They took it as a sign. Less than two years later, Daniela moved to join Pablo on his farm. They built their home in 2016 from the red clay of their hills. Their first vintage together as Chekura was in 2017. When they realised a winery could not be named after a place, they rebranded to Mingaco — the name of their flagship wine that people had already grown to love. Today, they have three children: Luan, Mayra, and Naía.
"It was hard to climb out of the hole I had dug myself into, and when I had the strength to do so, I decided to make wine."
— Pablo Pedreros
Checura, the Itata River & the Granitic Hand
Checura sits in the Secano Interior of the Itata Valley — one of Chile's oldest and most historically significant wine regions, yet systematically marginalised by the industrial wine boom. The village lies along the Itata River, which flows east to west from the Cordillera de la Costa to the Pacific Ocean. The climate is coastal and Mediterranean — hot days, cool nights, and a dryness that has shaped the viticulture of the valley for centuries. Until the 1990s, Checura had almost no electricity. The farmers made bulk wine by tradition, selling to large producers for prices that barely sustained their families.
Pablo and Daniela farm 3 hectares of Moscatel de Alejandría from Pablo's family vineyards — the oldest parcel over 100 years old, in the family since Pablo's grandparents' generation, and another parcel that Pablo helped his father plant as a child. They also work with ½ hectare of País from a neighbouring vineyard where the vines are more than 120 years old, and ½ hectare of Cinsault around 30 years old. All vines are old, ungrafted, bush-trained (gobelet), and dry-farmed — phylloxera never reached Chile, so these vines root directly into their native soil. The soils are predominantly granitic, with red clay and transparent and white quartz — a geological patchwork that gives the wines a distinct mineral clarity.
Their approach to the land goes far beyond the vineyard. They have planted an entire edible forest among their vines: fig, apple, lemon, avocado, orange, peach, plum, European hazelnut, and olive — along with blueberries, boysenberries, artichokes, and native berries like murtilla and maqui. They plant up to 100 native trees each year to combat the controversial eucalyptus monoculture that dominates the regional economy. Their goal is water retention, water resiliency, and biodiversity. Since eliminating herbicides and disruptive soil preparations, they have noticed birds returning to the farm that Pablo had not seen since he was a child — welcomed back by healthy fruit and insects. "In ten years we hope it will grow into a true edible forest," says Daniela. "Today it's a vineyard with some fruit trees. We know it's a small impact, but it's something."
Checura is not a wine tourism destination; it is a working agricultural community that has been making wine for generations without the infrastructure or recognition of the famous valleys. For Pablo, it is home — the place where he was born, where his grandfather made wine, and where he returned after the earthquake to rebuild his life. For Daniela, it is the place where creative arts, holistic nutrition, and biodynamic farming converge. Together, they have transformed a village that the industrial wine world ignored into a beacon of regenerative agriculture and natural winemaking.
The oldest Moscatel parcel in the Mingaco portfolio is over 100 years old, passed down through Pablo's family since his grandparents' generation. Another parcel was planted by Pablo's father with Pablo's own hands as a child. These vines are ungrafted, bush-trained, dry-farmed, and rooted in granitic soils with red clay and quartz. The Moscatel is Pablo's signature grape — the one he has known since childhood, the one that reflects his personality most directly, and the one that produces the winery's flagship white wine.
The País vines that go into Mingaco Red come from a neighbouring vineyard where the vines are more than 120 years old — some of the oldest living País vines in Chile. These are not owned by Pablo and Daniela; they are sourced through relationships with local family farmers who have preserved their ancestral vines against all economic logic. The Cinsault, around 30 years old, comes from another neighbouring parcel. This model of working with neighbouring growers is central to the Mingaco philosophy: community, not isolation.
Daniela and Pablo have planted an extraordinary array of fruit and nut trees among their vines, creating a nascent edible forest that supports biodiversity, water retention, and soil health. They also plant up to 100 native trees each year to combat the eucalyptus monoculture that has devastated the local ecosystem. The native trees bring seeds to the vineyard — baby native trees appear among the vines, carried by birds and wind. This is not just sustainable viticulture; it is ecosystem restoration, one tree at a time.
The Biodynamic Calendar, the JADAM Method & the Outdoor Hand
Pablo and Daniela's winemaking is a fusion of ancestral tradition, biodynamic discipline, and JADAM organic methodology. Pablo brings the generational knowledge of his father and grandfather — the rhythms of harvest, the intuition of the vineyard, the patience of outdoor fermentation. Daniela brings the biodynamic calendar and the JADAM method — a Korean system of ultra-low-cost organic farming that emphasises indigenous microorganisms and natural inputs. Together, they have created a practice that is both ancient and radically modern.
The vineyard is farmed according to the biodynamic calendar since 2017 — pruning, weeding, harvesting, bottling, and even tasting are scheduled by the lunar and planetary rhythms. They use wild cover crops and biocomplete compost; zero synthetic fertilisers or herbicides. Pablo has become so attuned to the subtle changes that he can consistently tell whether it's a root, leaf, or fruit day just by tasting one of his wines. Presses and fermentations take place mostly outdoors, with ambient temperatures dictating the pace — no temperature control, no stainless steel tanks with cooling jackets, just the natural rhythm of the Itata climate.
The wines are made with spontaneous fermentation — indigenous yeasts only, no commercial inoculation. The Mingaco White (Moscatel) is hand-harvested and macerated for 14 days on skins in an open-top lagar with oxygen exposure, then the free-run wine is aged for 24 months in two 1,100-litre closed tanks. The Mingaco Red (Cinsault and País) is harvested by hand and fermented on skins in plastic vats for 4 months, then the free-run wine is aged for an additional 19 months in old American oak. Sulphur is minimal. Filtration is absent. And the result is wines that are alive, expressive, and deeply connected to their place — wines that have found their way into the cellars of 99 Restaurante and DePatio Restaurante, both named on lists of the 50 Best Restaurants in Latin America.
The Biodynamic Calendar & the JADAM Covenant
The guiding principle of Pablo and Daniela's cellar is that the winemaker is a servant of natural cycles, not a master of technology. The biodynamic calendar dictates when to prune, when to harvest, when to bottle, and when to taste. The JADAM method provides ultra-low-cost organic treatments made from indigenous plants and microorganisms. The outdoor fermentation captures the microbial soul of the Itata Valley. The wild cover crops and biocomplete compost build soil health without synthetic inputs. The absence of herbicides allows birds and insects to return, creating a self-regulating ecosystem. And the long, patient ageing — 24 months for the Moscatel, 19 months for the red — allows the wines to develop complexity without oak dominance. The cellar is not a factory but an extension of the vineyard — open to the sky, guided by the moon, and rooted in the red clay of Checura.
Mingaco White, Mingaco Red, Piedra Cura & the Healing Hand
The Mingaco portfolio is small, focused, and deeply personal — each wine is a portrait of a specific grape, a specific vineyard, and a specific moment in the biodynamic calendar. Production ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 bottles annually — tiny by Chilean standards, but precisely the scale that allows Pablo and Daniela to maintain their hands-on, outdoor, human-scale approach. The wines have found their way onto the lists of some of the most prestigious restaurants in Latin America, and they are sought after by natural wine importers and specialist retailers worldwide.
The Edible Forest, the Biodynamic Moon & the Mingaco Hand
Mingaco is not merely a winery; it is a life project — the story of how a man who walked for a day to escape an earthquake and a woman who found her way home through fermentation built a regenerative farm in a village that the world had forgotten. In an era when Chilean wine was defined by industrial scale, export volume, and the erasure of smallholder farming, Pablo Pedreros and Daniela De Pablo Mendoza demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from a 100-year-old Moscatel vine on granitic soil with red clay and quartz, macerated for 14 days in an open-top lagar under the Itata sun, and aged for 24 months in a 1,100-litre tank. It is largely thanks to projects like Mingaco that Checura, the Secano Interior, and the Itata Valley now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same village that had no electricity until the 1990s has become, through their work, a beacon of biodynamic farming, regenerative agriculture, and community-based winemaking.
The legacy of Mingaco is the legacy of the healing hand in Chilean viticulture. Pablo is not a typical Chilean winemaker: he is a farmer who grew up without electricity, who learned winemaking from his grandfather, who spent his wine money on books, who can tell a root day from a fruit day by taste alone, and who walks his vineyard with the same patience his father taught him. Daniela is not a typical winery partner: she is a creative artist who studied in Santiago and Melbourne, who travelled the world, who found biodynamics through sauerkraut and kombucha, and who now plants 100 native trees a year to combat the eucalyptus monoculture. Together, they have built a home from red clay, raised three children among the vines, and created a model that others in the valley are now inspired to follow.
The future of the project is tied to the future of regenerative viticulture and biodynamic farming in the Itata Valley — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the most famous appellations but from the most committed guardians of ancient, dry-farmed vines. As Mingaco White continues to set the benchmark for Moscatel de Alejandría on the world stage, as Mingaco Red proves that a 120-year-old País vine can produce wine of extraordinary joy and drinkability, and as the edible forest grows toward its ten-year vision of a true self-sustaining ecosystem, Pablo and Daniela remain what they have always intended to be: a family from Checura who do not sell wines — they heal the land, one vine, one tree, one native bird at a time. The earthquake broke the city. The fermentation brought them together. And the Mingaco hand continues to tend the valley that the world is finally beginning to remember.
"In ten years we hope it will grow into a true edible forest. Today it's a vineyard with some fruit trees. We know it's a small impact, but it's something."
— Daniela De Pablo Mendoza, Mingaco