The Agronomist, the Granitic Soil & the Patient Hand
Pino Román is the intensely focused project of Ignacio "Nacho" Pino Román — a Chilean agronomist who spent years working harvests in Alentejo, Napa, New Zealand, and California before returning home in 2018 with a singular mission: to make the purest possible wines from Itata's ancient, own-rooted vines. Based in Coelemu, in the Secano Interior of the Itata Valley, Nacho works with four small growers across Trehuaco, Tauco, and the Ñuble coastal range — paying them double or triple the market rate to farm organically, abandon glyphosate, and plough the soil with horses. He believes that wine is born in the vineyard, and his cellar philosophy is one of radical restraint: early picking for acidity, native yeasts, delicate extraction, a single racking, and ageing in stainless steel or old Chilean tinajas — never oak. The result is a portfolio of rare purity and finesse: a zero-sulphur País pét-nat from 60-year-old vines, a Semillón from a 0.3-hectare parcel, an orange wine aged 10 months in amphora, and a Pipeño in a 1-litre bottle that tastes like the Itata countryside itself. Nacho is calm, collected, and quietly determined — a winemaker of process and precision who lets the granitic soil do the talking.
The Agronomist, the World & the Pino Román Hand
Ignacio Pino Román — Nacho to everyone who knows him — is not a typical Chilean winemaker. He did not inherit a family estate. He did not grow up in a wine dynasty. He is an agronomist by training who learned viticulture from the soil up, and who spent his formative years working harvests across three continents before deciding that the most extraordinary vineyards were the ones he had left behind. After completing his agronomy studies in Chile, Nacho worked in Portugal's Alentejo, then in Napa Valley, then in New Zealand, and again in California — absorbing different approaches to farming, fermentation, and terroir expression.
What he discovered was that the most exciting viticulture was not in the famous appellations of the New World, but in the forgotten corners of his own country. While Chile's industrial wine machine focused on the Central Valley — ripping out País to plant Cabernet Sauvignon for export — the Itata Valley had preserved something precious: small, family-run plots of ancient, own-rooted vines farmed without chemicals for generations. In 2018, Nacho returned to Chile and settled in Coelemu, a town in the Secano Interior of Itata, just 20 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean. He began knocking on doors, tasting grapes in the field, and building relationships with growers who had never sold to a boutique winemaker before.
The project grew organically — one grower at a time, one vineyard at a time. Nacho found Eliana Sanhueza in Trehuaco and Tauco, tending 60-year-old País, Moscatel, and Torontel vines on granitic soils at 161 metres above sea level. He found Manuel Ulloa in Coelemu, farming a tiny 0.3-hectare parcel of 40-year-old Semillón at 131 metres. And he found the "Los Pellines" vineyard in the Ñuble coastal range — more than 80 years old, dry-farmed, own-rooted, and planted to País, Cinsault, and Moscatel de Alejandría. Nacho did not buy land; he bought trust. And he paid for it — literally — at rates far above the industrial market.
"Wine is born in the vineyard."
— Ignacio Pino Román
Itata, the Secano Interior & the Granitic Hand
The Itata Valley is one of Chile's oldest wine regions, yet it has been systematically marginalised by the industrial wine boom. Located in the southern part of Chile's Central Valley, Itata stretches from the coastal hills to the inland drylands, with a Mediterranean climate tempered by the Pacific influence. The Secano Interior — the interior drylands — is where Nacho has focused his attention: a zone of small farms, ancient bush vines, and decomposed granite soils that give the wines a distinctive mineral clarity and freshness.
All of Nacho's vineyards are own-rooted — because phylloxera never reached Chile, these vines have grown directly in their native soil for 40 to 80+ years without grafting. They are dry-farmed, bush-trained (gobelet), and farmed organically — no glyphosate, no artificial fertilisers, no synthetic chemicals. Nacho convinced his growers to switch from conventional farming to organic practices, and in some cases to plough the soil with horses rather than tractors, preserving soil structure and promoting living soils with healthy microflora populations. The elevation ranges from 85 to 161 metres above sea level, and the proximity to the ocean — just 20 kilometres away — brings cooling breezes that preserve acidity in a region otherwise known for warmth.
The soils are uniformly granitic — decomposed granite that drains well, stresses the vines, and imparts a stony, electric minerality to the wines. The growers are not employees; they are partners. Nacho visits regularly, tastes the grapes in the field, and decides harvest dates collaboratively. He pays double or triple the going rate for grapes — not as charity, but as investment in quality. For him, the relationship between winemaker and grower is the foundation of everything. Without the right vineyard management, there is no wine worth making.
Coelemu is the town where Nacho settled and where he found Manuel Ulloa's tiny 0.3-hectare Semillón parcel — 40-year-old own-rooted vines at 131 metres on granitic soils. It is a quiet, agricultural community in the coastal range of Itata, where smallholder farming is still the norm and the pace of life is dictated by the seasons. For Nacho, Coelemu is not just a base of operations; it is the centre of a web of relationships that extends across the valley. He lives among the growers, shares meals with them, and tastes their grapes every week during ripening. This is not absentee winemaking; it is embedded viticulture.
Eliana Sanhueza farms two extraordinary parcels that form the backbone of the Pino Román project. In Trehuaco, her 3-hectare vineyard of 60+ year old País vines at 161 metres provides the fruit for the still and pét-nat País wines. In Tauco, her 3.5-hectare vineyard of 60+ year old Moscatel and Torontel at 161 metres (and 85 metres for the Moscatel) provides the fruit for the orange wines. Both parcels are on granitic soils, dry-farmed, own-rooted, and organically tended. The maritime influence is palpable, and the old vines give fruit of extraordinary concentration and character. For Nacho, these are not just vineyards; they are the reason he came home.
The "Los Pellines" vineyard in the Ñuble coastal range is more than 80 years old — a field blend of País, Cinsault, and Moscatel de Alejandría planted together, dry-farmed, own-rooted, and organically farmed at 161 metres on granitic soils. This is the source for the Pipeño, the most traditional wine in the Pino Román portfolio. The vineyard represents the ancestral wine culture of the Chilean countryside: mixed plantings, no irrigation, manual labour, and a humility that industrial viticulture has forgotten. For Nacho, Los Pellines is a living archive of Itata's viticultural past.
Nacho is fanatical about soil health. When he began working with his growers, the first thing he did was eliminate glyphosate and artificial fertilisers. The second thing was to introduce organic treatments and, in some cases, horse ploughing. The goal is not certification but vitality: living soils with healthy microflora populations that produce grapes with natural yeast populations, complex aromatics, and mineral depth. The granitic soils drain well and stress the vines naturally, giving small berries with thick skins and concentrated juice. This is viticulture as ecosystem management — not farming for yield, but farming for expression.
No Ornament, the Tinaja & the Restrained Hand
Nacho Pino Román's winemaking philosophy is distilled in a single idea: "wines with as little interference as possible and wines without ornament." For him, natural wine is not a political statement or a marketing category — it is a technical discipline. He picks relatively early to retain acidity and freshness. He allows natural yeasts to dictate fermentations. He extracts as delicately as possible during maceration. He only racks once to remove the gross lees. And he eschews oak barrels entirely, preferring the flavour neutrality of stainless steel tanks and traditional old Chilean tinajas (amphoras). Sulphur is used only in tiny doses at bottling — and some cuvées, like the País Pet Nat, receive none at all.
The cellar is a model of calm precision. White grapes are hand-harvested and often destemmed into open tanks for skin fermentation — the Semillón sees six months on skins in stainless steel, while the Moscatel-Torontel orange wine ages for 10 months on skins in very old Chilean amphoras. Red grapes are destemmed into open vats for maceration and fermentation without temperature control, then rested in stainless steel for 10 months. The pét-nat is made by the ancestral method: free-run juice from whole-bunch pressing is fermented in tank until residual sugar reaches 8-10 mg/l, then bottled to finish fermentation naturally. No disgorgement. No dosage. No sulphur.
What distinguishes Nacho's wines is their clarity and finesse. Despite the minimal intervention, there is no funk for funk's sake. The wines are clean, precise, and deeply expressive of their granitic terroir. The País is light and crunchy. The Semillón is waxy and mineral. The orange wine is aromatic and textured. And the Pipeño is juicy, rustic, and joyfully drinkable. This is natural winemaking as refinement, not rebellion — a quiet, confident expression of a winemaker who trusts the vineyard completely.
No Ornament & the Tinaja Covenant
The guiding principle of Nacho's cellar is that the best vessel is the one that adds nothing. The old Chilean tinajas — clay amphoras used in rural winemaking for centuries — provide natural temperature regulation and gentle oxygen exchange without imparting oak flavour. The stainless steel tanks preserve primary fruit and freshness. The single racking removes only the grossest lees, leaving the wine with its natural texture and microbial complexity. The native yeasts capture the unique microbial fingerprint of each granitic vineyard. The early harvest preserves acidity and prevents over-ripeness. The minimal sulphur allows the wine to evolve as a living organism. And the absence of oak, additives, and manipulation keeps the wine honest — a clear window into the Itata soil, the old vines, and the hands that tend them.
País, Semillón, Orange & the Pipeño Hand
The Pino Román portfolio is deliberately small and tightly focused — each wine is a portrait of a specific vineyard, a specific variety, and a specific grower. Production is tiny, often just a few thousand bottles per cuvée, and the wines are released when they are ready, not when the market demands them. The País has become a global calling card for the project — praised for its purity, crunch, and honest expression of old-vine Itata. The Semillón is a white of rare finesse from a minuscule 0.3-hectare parcel. The orange wine is textural and aromatic, aged for 10 months in amphora. And the Pipeño — bottled in the traditional 1-litre format — is the country soul of the project, a field blend that tastes like the Itata countryside itself.
The Patient Hand, the Granitic Soil & the Pure Wine
Pino Román is not merely a winery; it is a manifesto of patience — the story of how one agronomist returned from three continents to prove that the most profound wines in Chile come from the smallest vineyards, tended by the oldest hands, on the most honest soils. In an era when Chilean wine was defined by industrial scale, export volume, and the homogenisation of flavour, Ignacio Pino Román demonstrated that the most exciting wines sometimes come from a 0.3-hectare parcel of 40-year-old Semillón in Coelemu, fermented in stainless steel with native yeasts, and bottled with a tiny pinch of sulphur. It is largely thanks to projects like Pino Román that Itata, the Secano Interior, and the Ñuble coastal range now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same vineyards that industrial Chile tried to forget have become, through his work, some of the most pure and finesse-driven expressions in the country.
The legacy of Pino Román is the legacy of the patient hand in Chilean viticulture. Nacho is not a typical Chilean winemaker: he does not own a large estate, he does not chase scores, and he does not build his brand on supermarket placement. He is an agronomist who travelled the world, learned from Alentejo and Napa and New Zealand, and returned home to pay double the market rate for grapes from four small growers — convincing them to abandon glyphosate, plough with horses, and preserve their ancient vines. He works with stainless steel and old tinajas, not French oak. He racks once, not three times. And he believes that the best winemaking is the winemaking that gets out of the way.
The future of the project is tied to the future of smallholder viticulture and natural wine in Southern Chile — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the most famous appellations but from the most committed guardians of ancient, own-rooted vines. As the País Pet Nat continues to introduce the world to zero-sulphur Chilean sparkling wine, as the Semillón proves that Itata can produce whites of world-class precision, as the orange wine shows that amphora-aged Moscatel can be both textured and elegant, and as the Pipeño honours the ancestral field-blend culture of the Chilean countryside, Nacho Pino Román remains what he has always intended to be: a calm, collected agronomist from Coelemu who does not make wine to impress critics — he makes wine to express the truth of the granitic soil, the old vines, and the hands that tend them. Wines without ornament. Wines of rare purity and finesse.
"Wines with as little interference as possible and wines without ornament."
— Ignacio Pino Román