The Chef & the Zaranda

The story of Viña Zaranda is a story of deliberate retreat — of a chef who decided that the most honest expression of terroir was not on a plate in Santiago, but in a glass from a vineyard 420 kilometres to the south. Juan Ignacio Acuña trained as a chef and sommelier in Santiago, then lived in Paris, absorbing the wine culture of France. But he grew tired of the kitchen. "I was tired of cooking and wanted to try the wine industry," he explains simply. In 2011, he and his partner Mary Aracibia made the decisive move: they left the city, left the restaurants, and established themselves in Guarilihue, a known terruño in the Itata Valley, in search of an austere lifestyle closer to the land.

Guarilihue is not an easy place. It is a village of smallholders, of fragmented vineyards, of families who have tended vines and animals for generations. The Acuña-Aracibia household has no children, but they have five dogs and a deep affection for the rhythms of farm life. They are not merely winemakers; they are participants in a rural culture that has survived for centuries. "Here, by generations, the family — among vines, animals, and people rich in spirit — maintains and promotes the traditions of the Chilean countryside," the estate notes. This is not marketing copy; it is the lived reality of a couple who chose to become campesinos.

From the beginning, the project was defined by respect for tradition and a refusal to industrialise. Juan Ignacio did not arrive with a consultant's recipe or a corporate business plan. He arrived with a chef's palate, a sommelier's curiosity, and a conviction that the old vines of Itata — many of them ungrafted, dry-farmed, and bush-trained — deserved to be heard rather than corrected. The estate is now helmed by Juan Ignacio, with the enologist Catalina Ugarte leading the technical work. Together, they are not merely producing wine; they are replanting the history and viticultural heritage of one of Chile's most beautiful wine regions.

The name Zaranda is the thread that ties the estate to the valley's deepest traditions. A zaranda is a simple filter made from bamboo shoots — a traditional cane-mat destemmer used in Itata for centuries. It requires no electricity, employs local artisans to weave it, and treats the grapes with a gentleness that no machine can replicate. The name is a declaration: this is a winery that values the hand, the local, and the slow. It is a winery that believes wine is not merely a product but a cultural expression, deeply tied to land, time, and community. In 2022, Juan Ignacio became a founding member of Sur Natural, an association of small artisanal producers in southern Chile dedicated to giving structure to the real side of natural wine production — from vineyard management to low-intervention winemaking.

The guiding philosophy of Viña Zaranda is expressed in three words: honesty, freshness, and minimal intervention. Juan Ignacio is committed to winemaking that allows each vineyard to express itself without manipulation — not through heavy extraction or new oak, but through indigenous yeasts, gentle handling, and a refusal to correct what nature provides. His approach is not a rejection of technique but a rejection of artifice: he farms organically, harvests by hand, destems with the traditional zaranda, and ferments with native yeasts in stainless steel and old wood. The result is a portfolio that is typified by juiciness, drinkability, and living energy — wines that are as approachable as they are thought-provoking, as fresh as they are rooted in history.

The methodology is deliberately traditional and fundamentally Itata. All grapes are hand-harvested and destemmed with the zaranda — a slow, gentle process that preserves the integrity of the berries and employs local artisans. The reds — País and Cinsault — are fermented with indigenous yeasts and matured in old barrels, with minimal sulfur additions. The whites — Semillón, Moscatel, Chasselas, and Gewürztraminer — are fermented with indigenous yeasts, often with skin contact, in stainless steel or old wood. The Semillón co-fermented with Gewürztraminer spends time on skins in stainless steel tanks, developing texture and aromatic complexity without oxidative weight. The Chasselas is an orange wine — 80% Chasselas, 20% Gewürztraminer — fermented on skins and perfect as an aperitif.

The estate is rigorously low-intervention. There is no chaptalisation, no commercial yeast inoculation, no fining, and no filtration on most cuvées. Sulfur is kept to an absolute minimum — typically between 0 and 30 mg/L total, placing the wines firmly within the natural wine category. The alcohol levels are modest — 10.6% to 13% — reflecting the cool climate and the estate's refusal to chase ripeness for power. The wines are bottled young and fresh, designed to be drunk with pleasure rather than cellared for decades. As the estate's importer notes, the aim is to create "a style that speaks to all people, that is uncomplicated and easy to connect with all of life's moments."

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a family space — a modest building on the farm where Juan Ignacio, Mary, and Catalina do the work. There is no consultant recommending corrective enzymes, no recipe that overrides the vintage, no pressure to produce heavy, extracted blockbusters. There is only the family, the five dogs, the granitic soils, and the patience to let each wine find its own voice. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, precise, and alive — wines that have earned 92 points from Tim Atkin, praise from wine critics worldwide, and a place on the lists of natural wine bars from London to Tokyo. These are wines that make you smile, and at the same time, think.

To understand Viña Zaranda, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a family project, a social commitment, and a proof that a chef and a sommelier can become the voice of Guarilihue. The identity of the project is defined by the couple — Juan Ignacio, the chef who trained in Santiago and Paris and returned to the land; and Mary, his partner in life and work, who shares the farmhouse and the vision. The identity is also defined by the zaranda on the label and in the cellar — a simple cane-mat destemmer that represents the refusal to industrialise, the commitment to local artisans, and the gentleness that machines cannot replicate. The estate is not a monoculture; it is a home with five dogs and no children, where the rhythms of the farm dictate the rhythms of the wine. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but expressions of a place and a family — each bottle a testament to the conviction that wine should be honest, fresh, and deeply connected to the community that produces it.

The identity is also defined by community — Juan Ignacio's role as a founding member of Sur Natural, the association of small artisanal producers in southern Chile dedicated to giving structure to the real side of natural wine production. "There has been an exponential growth of natural wines in Chile," he notes, "although there is still a lack of definition as to what a natural wine is in Chile. This is part of the reason behind starting the association — to give a structure to the real side of natural wine production, from the way the vineyard is managed through to low intervention in winemaking." The estate is part of a movement that includes Roberto Henríquez, Tinto de Rulo, Gustavo Riffo, Viña de Neira, Viña Doña Luisa, and Viña San Lorenzo — a collective of small growers who believe that protecting ancient vines is a key part of protecting local culture.

The identity is also defined by refusal — the refusal to chase the industrial model of Chile's northern valleys, the refusal to use irrigation when rain is sufficient, the refusal to graft vines when own-rooted vines still thrive, the refusal to use machines when hands and zarandas are enough, and the refusal to treat wine as a commodity rather than a cultural expression. Juan Ignacio has kept the range modest and focused, producing only a handful of cuvées that reflect the varieties Itata has preserved for centuries: País, Cinsault, Semillón, Moscatel, Chasselas. He has not planted Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. He has not built a tasting room that resembles a spaceship. He has simply farmed, harvested, destemmed with the zaranda, and let the wines speak. The wines reflect this intentionality: they are not radical, not rustic, not naive. They are precise, traditional, and deeply considered — the product of a chef's palate and a farmer's love of his land converging on a small plot of granite in Guarilihue.

The future of Viña Zaranda is tied to the continued health of its old, dry-farmed, organic vineyards, the deepening of its natural wine practices, and the continued partnership of Juan Ignacio, Mary, and Catalina. They are eager to explore new expressions of the Guarilihue terroir, to deepen their understanding of the granitic soils, and to obtain ever more precise, elegant, and terroir-driven expressions from the fruit of their own Jurassic-aged granite. The País will continue to be the soul of the estate, the Semillón the aromatic ambassador, and the Chasselas the orange-wine pioneer. They do not chase trends; they chase the truth of their land, and they have the patience to let that truth speak in its own voice — a voice that is Guarilihue-born, Itata-rooted, and unmistakably Zaranda.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Viña Zaranda stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values organic farming over chemical convenience, dry farming over irrigation, ungrafted vines over phylloxera fear, hand harvesting over mechanical efficiency, zaranda destemming over industrial crushers, indigenous yeasts over inoculation, old barrels over new oak intrusion, minimal sulfur over heavy dosing, modest alcohol over extracted power, local varieties over global monoculture, and the specific voice of Guarilihue's granite and Pacific breeze over the standardised replication of a global style. Juan Ignacio Acuña and Mary Aracibia are not merely making wine; they are proving that a chef and a sommelier can become the voice of a valley, that a small plot of granitic soil can produce wines of international recognition, that a wine made with a zaranda can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — wines that make you smile and, at the same time, think — is often the most profound. From the first vintage in 2012 to the wines of today: all united in one family, one synthesis, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the granite heart of the Itata Valley.