The Founders & the Cowhide

The story of Viñedos Herrera Alvarado begins in the Marga Marga Valley, a narrow, sheltered valley roughly an hour and a half northwest of Santiago, southeast of Viña del Mar and north of the Casablanca Valley. Carolina Alvarado and Arturo Herrera were friends from school. Both studied agriculture — not viticulture or oenology — and they came to the valley not through family inheritance but through connection to the people in the small towns and villages around Quilpué. They were fascinated by the slowly disappearing wine culture and vineyards of the area, where local huasos — countryside farmers — had always made wine for home consumption without any additives, using methods passed down from generation to generation.

In 2003, working with a local cooperative, they began making wine based on the methods of these small producers. From the beginning, they followed their own instincts. Lacking any formal training in winemaking, they based their approach on what they learned from the old people of the valley — techniques that traced their roots back to the 16th century, when the Spanish first planted vines in Marga Marga in 1586. They were drawn to the living wines of the region: wines made in harmony with nature, the environment, and its people. It was what we now call natural wine, but for them it was simply wine — wine made to be shared with family and friends on weekends.

They started by renting vineyards, then were able to buy an abandoned 60-year-old plot that had been planted with French varieties. They began converting it, planting native and Spanish strains alongside the existing vines. Over the years, they built a bodega out of the valley's own red clay soils — adobe walls dug from the earth, with no cement or concrete. They developed relationships with grape farmers across the region and pursued their own vision of the valley's wines, informed by the traditional methods they learned from local people. In an area where viticulture was largely uncommercialised, this meant winemaking without sulfur and farming without industrial fertilisers or herbicides. They were making natural wines long before that category had any relevance in Chile.

Today, Carolina and Arturo are considered the founders of Chile's natural wine movement. They own roughly 2 hectares and produce 5,000 to 6,000 bottles under their own label, but they are also part of a cooperative of about five families, producing wine collectively and sharing resources. They host free wine classes and Sunday wine markets for locals, turning their vineyard into a democratic gathering space where wine professionals and neighbours come to buy bottles, share food, and inevitably turn the afternoon into a party. Carolina is pursuing a degree in social work to enable her to get more involved in the struggle for dignity and political change for Marga Marga's struggling rural communities. For them, the project is social and political far more than commercial.

The guiding philosophy of Viñedos Herrera Alvarado is expressed in three words: tradition, community, and zero. Carolina and Arturo are committed to winemaking that expresses the Marga Marga valley distinctly — not through modern technology or additives, but through the traditional methods they learned from the old huasos of the region: cowhide fermentation, hand-destemming over zaranda mats, ageing in raulí wood and clay tinajas, and absolute refusal of sulfur, fining, or filtration. Their approach is not a rejection of modernity but a deepening of tradition: they work without electricity, without pumps, without temperature control, and without any chemical inputs. The result is a portfolio that is typified by texture, vitality, and honesty — wines that are as alive as the forest that surrounds them, as ancient as the valley's 400-year history, and as uncompromising as the couple who makes them.

The methodology is deliberately traditional and fundamentally Chilean. For the reds, grapes are hand-harvested and destemmed by hand over a bamboo zaranda — a woven mat that separates berries from stems. Some wines are then fermented whole-cluster in cured cowhides (cuero de vaca or cuero de buey) — large leather vats that expand when wet and impart a unique, nutritious character to the wine. The cowhides are cured and cleaned, then filled with grapes and sealed. Fermentation occurs spontaneously with indigenous yeasts, without temperature control. After maceration, the wines are racked into old barrels — raulí (native Chilean birch) or old French oak — where they age on fine lees for 12 to 36 months before bottling. For the whites, grapes are gently pressed and fermented in concrete tanks or clay tinajas, often with a layer of flor developing on top. Some whites see brief skin contact; others are macerated in amphora.

The special cuvées are made with the same care and zero intervention. La Zaranda is Sauvignon Blanc hand-destemmed over the zaranda, given 2 days of skin maceration, and raised for 17 months on fine lees in concrete. Natural Blanco is Sauvignon Blanc with 5 days of skin maceration, then pressed and aged for 3 years in old barrels. Oro Negro is centenarian País fermented whole-cluster in cow skins for 15 days, then aged 15 months in old barrels. Cuero de Vaca is Carmenere fermented whole-cluster in cow skins for 17 days, then aged 15 months in old barrels. Rojo Loco is a field blend of Moscatel Rosada, País, Moscatel Amarilla, and Cristal from 850-metre elevation, co-fermented with 5 days of skin contact. Each wine is bottled without fining, filtration, or added SO2. The only exception is a minimal, naturally occurring sulfur trace of around 10 mg/L in some wines — not added, but present from fermentation.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a clay cave — a small bodega dug from the red earth of Marga Marga, where cowhides hang alongside raulí barrels and clay tinajas, where a single extension cord runs down from the house to power a stereo for playing music while they work. There is no consultant recommending corrective enzymes, no recipe that overrides the vintage, no pressure to produce industrial wines or polished, sterile bottles. There is only Carolina, Arturo, the ancient methods, and the patience to let each wine take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, alive, and profoundly textured — wines that have earned a place in the cellars of the world's most discerning natural wine collectors. As one writer noted, Herrera Alvarado makes natural wine and natural wine — the real thing, not the marketing version.

To understand Viñedos Herrera Alvarado, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a social and political project disguised as a bodega. The identity of the project is defined by the community — the cooperative of five families, the Sunday wine markets that turn into parties, the free wine classes for locals, and the fair prices paid to farmers in a market that would otherwise exploit them. The identity is also defined by the zero-zero pledge: zero added sulfur, zero fining, zero filtration, zero chemicals, zero electricity in the cellar, zero compromise. The estate is not a monoculture; it is a living tradition. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but expressions of a place, a people, and a purpose — each bottle a testament to the conviction that wine should be honest, communal, and deeply respectful of the land and the hands that produced it.

The identity is also defined by advocacy and resistance — the fight to preserve Marga Marga's disappearing wine culture against the forces of industrial agriculture, urban expansion, and corporate wine consolidation. Carolina and Arturo see their work as social and political far more than as a commercial endeavour. They host Sunday wine markets that are open to anyone — democratic gatherings where wine professionals and neighbours buy bottles, share picnics, and turn the afternoon into a celebration. They provide income for isolated and impoverished rural communities. They teach young producers to make natural wine after their studies, inviting them to work in the vineyard, do harvests, and operate the press. They are, in essence, the guardians of a valley that the modern wine world has forgotten, using tradition as a tool for social preservation.

The identity is also defined by refusal — the refusal to irrigate, the refusal to use synthetic chemicals, the refusal to add sulfur, the refusal to fine or filter, the refusal to use electricity or temperature control in the cellar, the refusal to chase the polished commercial wine model, and the refusal to treat wine as a commodity rather than a cultural and communal product. Carolina and Arturo have kept their range focused and traditional, resisting the pressure to expand into international varieties or heavy, extracted styles. They have moved from conventional agriculture to organic and biodynamic practice. But they have never abandoned the traditions that make Marga Marga what it is: the cowhide vats, the zaranda mats, the raulí barrels, the clay tinajas, and the ancient País. The wines reflect this intentionality: they are not radical, not rustic, not naive. They are precise, traditional, and deeply considered — the product of agricultural training and a farmer's love of their valley converging on 2 hectares of clay and quartz.

The future of Viñedos Herrera Alvarado is tied to the continued health of their 2 hectares and the cooperative vineyards they work with, the deepening of biodynamic practices, and the gradual replacement of delicate French strains with more resistant native varieties like Cristal, Pink Muscatel, and Alexandria. Carolina and Arturo are eager to continue — to explore new expressions of the Marga Marga terroir, to deepen their understanding of the valley's clay and quartz, and to obtain ever more precise, elegant, and terroir-driven expressions from the fruit of their own ancient vines. The La Zaranda will continue to be the textured white ambassador, the Oro Negro the cowhide masterpiece, and the Rojo Loco the wild high-elevation blend. They do not chase trends; they chase the truth of their valley, and they have the patience to let that truth speak in its own voice — a voice that is Marga Marga-born, clay-rooted, and unmistakably Herrera Alvarado.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Viñedos Herrera Alvarado 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, biodynamic treatments over synthetic inputs, dry-farming over irrigation, hand harvest over mechanical efficiency, indigenous yeasts over inoculation, cowhide vats over stainless steel intrusion, clay tinajas over new oak, zero sulfites over heavy dosing, community cooperation over corporate expansion, social justice over profit maximisation, and the specific voice of Marga Marga's clay and quartz over the standardised replication of a global style. Carolina Alvarado and Arturo Herrera are not merely making wine; they are proving that a couple with no formal training can become the founders of a movement, that 2 hectares of clay can produce wines of international recognition, that a wine fermented in a cowhide can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — make wine as the grandfathers made it, and share it with the community — is often the most profound. From the first vintage in 2003 to the wines of today: all united in one mission, one synthesis, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the clay heart of Chile.