CASA MARÍN

Casa Marín sits in Lo Abarca, a village in Chile’s San Antonio Valley just 4 km from the Pacific — the closest commercial vineyard to the ocean in Chile. María Luz Marín founded the estate in 2000, against the advice of colleagues and experts who told her grapes would never ripen there, and she remains the only Chilean woman to have founded and made wine at her own winery under her own name.

The second generation runs it today: Nicolás Marín, Felipe Marín and his wife Jamie Verbraak. Felipe, María Luz’s youngest son, studied viticulture in Sonoma and enology in Marlborough, New Zealand, and has made the wines here for more than fifteen years — minimal intervention, letting Lo Abarca speak for itself.

The estate farms 40 hectares in 59 blocks, 90% of them on hillsides, some severely steep; Decanter has called it one of Chile’s most radical vineyards. In 2018 Casa Marín was granted its own D.O., Lo Abarca — the first winery in Chile to earn an appellation of its own. Thirty people work here, most for more than a decade.

“Casa Marin has been an eye-opener for the Chilean wine industry in terms of exploring the huge opportunities of this diverse terroir. Today it not only has its own D.O but is part of Chile’s history and future.” — Jamie Verbraak, Commercial Manager