Cacique Maravilla

Cacique Maravilla Naranja 2021

Size 750mL

$24.99

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This 100% full skin contact Muscat of Alexandria is a node to ancient winemaking. Angular tannins contrast with intense perfume, creating an experience of opposites: light and dark, gentle and powerful.

Manuel macerates his grapes on the skins in open barrels of Rauli (the native pink oak of Chile) for 24 hours before being foot stomped and then gravity fed into tightly sealed fiberglass tanks for two months. Fermentation occurs with ambient yeasts. Just before the close of fermentation, the wine is bottled, unfiltered and without sulfur, capturing its raw, rustic effervescence.

About Cacique Maravilla

Manuel Moraga is the 7th generation winemaker. His ancestor was a conquistador who had an unusually positive relationship with the local people. They bestowed upon him the name nickname Cacique Maravilla, or "Wonderful Leader." That would later become the name of the Moraga winery. Manuel continues in the lineage of his ancestors, making wine from vines over 250 years old. Very little is done in the vineyard: minimally and organically farmed, not much pruning, no tractors. The vines are so wild you can barely walk through the vineyard, let alone get a tractor through it. This is exactly the way Manuel likes it, and the arid local weather makes any disease issues that might arise nearly nonexistent. Bío-Bío's climate is classified as Köppen Csb on the Köppen-Geiger climate scale. In layman's terms, this translate as a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. February is the peak of summer in Chile, and the weather is moderate, dry, and clear for the majority of the summer season. Fungal and bacterial diseases seen in humid climates are seldom an issue here. The grapes are dry-farmed on a soil bed of volcanic sand formed by redeposited ash (known in Chile as trumao.)