Recognized for its unwavering commitment to excellence in vineyards and wines, and in a constant quest to find the best expression of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Puente Alto D.O., Viña Don Melchor presents its latest innovative project.

Guided by the visionary leadership of its CEO and Technical Director Enrique Tirado, this vineyard is a way to continue advancing in the field of sustainability, the preservation of biodiversity in the vineyard and how to face the new challenges posed by climate change, as well as being a contribution to science and an important source of information regarding the cultivation of the vine.

Viña Don Melchor, based on its commitment to Excellence, Innovation and Sustainability, announces its “solar vineyard” project, with the aim of continuing to obtain the best and unique expression of each of the 151 plots of the Don Melchor vineyard. This solar vineyard will provide the vineyard with valuable information on the relationship between orientation and planting density in the cultivation of the vine, and its effects on the microclimate conditions at the level of the clusters and their consequent production and ripening. In turn, this project will show how this information can contribute to finding a new vineyard architecture to meet the challenges of sustainable agriculture and climate variations, and thus apply this new knowledge in the management of the current vineyard as well as future renovations.

This experimental vineyard was planted in 2018 with the Cabernet Sauvignon variety, Don Melchor’s masal selection on free-standing (without rootstock), covering an area of 0.16 hectares. It is composed of 60 rows (900 plants in total) 15 meters long, planted 50 cm apart in the centre, and 200 cm around the perimeter, thus being carefully arranged following a radial pattern and vertical conduction of the vines.

Committed to excellence

Thanks to this project it has been possible to identify various vineyard management practices that represent concrete advances in the search for the best expression of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Puente Alto terroir. The effect of vine orientation and planting density is clear in areas such as: yields per hectare, water use, solar radiation, photosynthesis, temperature at the cluster level, phenolic compound production, among other parameters.

“With these results we have made some important decisions in vineyard management, which will surely be strengthened by obtaining more data and information in the future,” says Enrique Tirado.

The results of this study are expected to strengthen the management of the 125 hectares that make up the Don Melchor vineyard, thus achieving the highest quality clusters and distinctive expression of this terroir in the wine.

“Don Melchor represents a constant quest to achieve excellence. Each vintage of Don Melchor is the result of the best expression of each vintage and, undoubtedly, this solar vineyard will give us a new dimension in the result of the wine”, says the winemaker.

Dedicated to agro-ecological agriculture

The solar vineyard project also embodies Viña Don Melchor’s dedication to sustainability and is an important step forward in its approach to agroecological and biodiversity-friendly agriculture.

“This innovative project will allow us to include measures in our vineyard to overcome the challenges posed by a more variable and changing climate,” Enrique Tirado explains, and continues:

“Specifically, this solar vineyard will guide us on how to achieve, for example, better water uptake in the soil and a more efficient use of this resource in the vineyard, achieve the highest and best quality in the phenolic compounds of the wine, as well as see how to enhance the biodiversity surrounding the vines and its particular relationship with the soil of each plot, among other valuable data”.

Advances based on innovation

The pioneering aspect of this vineyard lies precisely in its radial orientation, which offers Don Melchor’s technical team the opportunity to explore the intricate relationship between row orientation and planting density, and their effects on microclimate conditions at the cluster level, mainly temperature, solar radiation, photosynthesis level, quality and concentration of the different elements in the grapes, which are then transferred to the final wine. These values play a crucial role in the production and ripening of phenolic compounds in the grapes, such as sugar content, pH and acidity of the berries, which are essential elements in the production of high-quality wines.

Both the development of this solar vineyard, as well as the measurements and conclusions made from it, have been a collaborative work with the Center for Research and Innovation (CRI) of Viña Concha y Toro, “thus having a scientific, meticulous and accurate support in the collection of all this information,” says Enrique.

Thus, Viña Don Melchor continues to produce a wine that values the past and history, but at the same time, with a profound vision of the future, ensuring excellence at every stage of the process involved in the production of its wines.