Garage Wine Co Bagual Vineyard Garnacha: The Story Behind Lot #89
How a winery that started in a garage went on to become one of Chile's most acclaimed producers.
Chile is not the New World upstart most people assume. The first vines were planted here in the mid-16th century, well before the marshlands of the Médoc were drained and Bordeaux as we know it even existed. For hundreds of years, small farming families in Chile's Maule Valley tended their vines the old way: by hand, by horse, with no irrigation, relying on nothing but rainfall and the knowledge passed down through generations.
Most of the wine world forgot about them. The international market wanted big Cabernet Sauvignon from prestigious estates, not obscure field blends from remote hillsides. Old vineyards were left to decline or ripped out entirely to make way for fashionable international varieties.
Then a couple started making wine in their garage.
From a garage to global recognition
In 2001, Derek Mossman Knapp and Pilar Miranda began making wine with almost nothing. No investors, no fancy equipment, no pumps. They fermented in open-top vats and punched the grapes down by hand. They had no money for new barrels, so they used well-seasoned older ones. They couldn't afford a selection table, so they worked with growers whose farming was meticulous enough not to need one.
What they did have was a conviction that the most interesting wines in Chile weren't coming from the big estates in the Maipo Valley. They were coming from the small farmers nobody had heard of, tending ancient vines in remote corners of the Maule and Itata Valleys.
Twenty-four years and over 100 bottlings later, Garage Wine Co has become one of the most critically acclaimed producers in South America, regularly scoring in the high 90s from the world's leading wine publications. Derek Mossman was named the 2024 Old Vine Hero by The Old Vine Conference for his work reviving neglected vineyards in marginalised Chilean farming communities.
Finding Bagual
The Bagual vineyard is not easy to reach. To get there, you cross a makeshift ferry over the Perquilauquen River. There's no bridge because the floodplain is too unpredictable to build one. On the other side is the tiny hamlet of Caliboro, effectively cut off from what is already one of the most isolated parts of Chile's Maule Valley. Think dirt roads, people on horseback, and ways of life that haven't changed in generations.
The Perquilauquen does something unusual for a Chilean river: it flows from the Coastal Mountains eastward toward the Andes, the reverse of almost every other waterway in the country. As it passes through Caliboro, it carries granitic silt from the mountains, creating a soil that is both alluvial and granitic, a combination that is extremely rare in wine anywhere in the world. The river widens through this section into something like a narrow lake, cooling the surrounding vines and creating growing conditions distinct from anything in the neighbouring villages.
The vineyard itself is farmed by the Solar family, who have been its proprietors for generations. It is just 1.1 hectares, barely bigger than a football pitch. The roots here are over 150 years old. The wine they produce is the Garage Wine Co Bagual Vineyard Garnacha Lot #89.
Why these vines survived
While the rest of Chile was modernising its wine industry through the late 20th century, ripping out old plantings and replacing them with international varieties grown on an industrial scale, nobody came to Caliboro to tell the Solar family to do the same. These vines were simply too remote, the parcel too small, the rows too narrow for modern machinery. So they survived, tended by hand and horse, exactly as they always had been.
Garage Wine Co saw what the rest of the industry had overlooked: that the neglect was actually preservation. These ancient vines, farmed on their tiny parcel by the Solar family, were producing fruit of extraordinary concentration and character. They just needed someone to bottle it properly.
The Bagual vineyard was also the first in Chile to receive Ecological Outcome Verification from the Savory Institute, a global benchmark for regenerative agriculture. This means the farming is not merely sustainable but is actively improving the health of the soil year on year.
The grape
The Garnacha planted at Bagual is a rare Catalan clone, a piece of old-world Spanish winemaking that somehow ended up on a remote riverbank in southern Chile. If you've ever enjoyed a Côtes du Rhône, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or a Spanish Priorat, you've drunk Garnacha (known as Grenache in France). It is one of the world's great red grapes: generous, warm, full of red and dark fruit, spice, and texture.
Almost nobody makes Garnacha-dominant wines in Chile. It is a genuine rarity. Wine critics have compared the Bagual Vineyard Garnacha to a Spanish Priorat, one of Spain's most prestigious wine regions, known for producing some of the country's most sought-after and expensive reds. For a wine from a tiny Chilean hamlet reachable only by ferry to draw that comparison is extraordinary.
With roots over 150 years old, these vines naturally produce less fruit, just 1.5kg per plant. That means the vine concentrates all of its energy into fewer grapes, resulting in juice with more intensity and depth than younger, higher-yielding vines could ever produce.
How the wine is made
The winemaking at Garage Wine Co is as hands-on as the farming. The Bagual Garnacha is fermented with native yeasts in open-top fermenters. The cap is punched down by hand. Pressing is manual. To kickstart fermentation, the team uses a traditional method called pied de cuve: wine from the previous vintage of Bagual Garnacha is used to cultivate the vineyard's own native yeasts, which then inoculate the new harvest. It is a way of ensuring continuity between vintages, each year's wine carrying something of the last.
The wine is then aged in neutral oak barrels (third use or older) over two winters. The barrels are deliberately neutral so the oak contributes texture and gentle oxygenation without masking the character of the fruit. A pinch of sulphites is added after malolactic fermentation, which itself takes a full six to seven months to complete naturally, finishing with the following summer's warmth.
In the glass, expect dark plum and berry fruit, floral and spice notes, with an earthy, organic character. The palate is sinewy, with bright acidity and the fine tannins typical of Garnacha, and a long, layered finish. It is darker than many New World Garnachas, more reminiscent of the old-world style from which its Catalan clone originates.
Lot #89
Every wine Garage Wine Co has ever made receives a sequential lot number. The first bottling in 2001 was Lot #1. The Bagual Vineyard Garnacha 2017 is Lot #89, the 89th wine in their history. Each vineyard's lot always ends in the same digit, so the Bagual Garnacha can be traced back through the years: Lot #79 (2016), Lot #69 (2015), Lot #59 (2014), Lot #49 (2013). It is like an edition number on a print, making each bottling unique and traceable.
Only 2,449 bottles of Lot #89 were made.
Critical reception
The Bagual Garnacha has been reviewed across multiple vintages by leading wine publications including Descorchados, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, James Suckling, Tim Atkin MW, and Vinous. It has consistently scored between 92 and 94 across all of them. That kind of consensus from every major critic, vintage after vintage, does not happen by accident.
The winemaker suggests a drinking window of 2020 to 2030 for the 2017 vintage, with earlier vintages reportedly developing complex floral and tertiary notes that suggest much longer ageing potential.
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Garage Wine Co Bagual Vineyard Garnacha Lot #89 2017 £30.25
Garnacha. Hand-harvested. Horse-ploughed. 150-year-old roots. Only 2,449 bottles.
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