Chile’s Garcés Silva goes 100% organic

This year marked the first harvest when every grape at Garcés Silva was grown organically, with the family-owned winery in Chile’s San Antonio Valley deciding to convert fully to the farming method for the 2019-2020 growing season.

The Garcés Silva winery in San Antonio

According to the winemaker, Diego Rivera, the impact has been clear, with a “change in the fermentations and expressions of the wines,” noting that, in particular, there was “no problem this year with slow ferments,” adding, “We had really great dynamics, and we can be really confident now with natural ferments, which is one of the many positive aspects of organic agriculture.”

With 162 hectares of productive vineyards, the move to organics is far from insignificant, and follows a desire by the family and its employees to eschew any synthetic chemical inputs and improve quality at Garcés Silva, with Rivera saying that he was inspired by the results of longstanding organic producers in Chile, above all those in the newly-formed San Antonio Valley Association (Three of the eight member wineries are already organic/biodynamic: Matetic, Hacienda San Juan, Casas de Bucalemu).

Rivera expects to gain organic certification for all his production in two years time.

Summing up he also identified the market potential, saying, “We believe the opportunity exists for cool climate wines made in an organic way.”