Wines from Chile
Upon graduating from Fresno State in Dec. 01, I left for my first trip to Chile in January of 02 and began going to interview after interview looking for a harvest job that suited me, and ideally a place to make a small amount of my own wine. I was almost ready to give up when I came upon El Huique through another interview at Canepa winery. The consulting winemaker, Ernesto Jusan, at El Huique was the head winemaker at Canepa during this time. 

I began working for El Huique in March of 02. Our original contract was supposed to be 6 weeks, but I stayed on through July and the relationship between us grew. I became the winemaker at El Huique and also made my Parrone wines in the same facility.  I started with a Cabernet in 02, added a Syrah in 04, a Syrah/Cabernet Blend in 05, as well as, my premium Chilean blend, Alchemy. I stayed on as the winemaker at El Huique until 2006 where I began to get too busy with my own projects and had to focus more on time towards these ventures.

Our latest addition to our southern hemisphere production, Alchemy, has been a long time in the making and something I have been wanting to produce to show the public; "Yes, Chile can make something exceptional as well!" This product was hand destemmed, meaning each berry was removed one by one from the cluster and allowed to age for 2 years in barrel prior to bottling. It is a much more refined version of the Parrone products, yet with a price tag of less than $20. It has been fun playing around with this wine blending the four varietals to make this wine and I think it will show the skeptics the potential coming out of Chile.