Echeverria Gran Reserva Pinot Noir

Echeverria Gran Reserva Pinot Noir is a deep garnet red with purple hues. Rich and elegant, this attractive Pinot Noir combines aromas of strawberries, black cherries, raspberries and dry plums with hints of chocolate and mocha. The palate is round and soft offering a rich texture and a lush finish.

In 1740 the Echeverria family moved to Chile from the Basque region of Spain. They have been prominent in Chilean agriculture and active in grape growing and winemaking since then.

In 1930, Roger Piffre de Vauban, a French Engineer from Montpellier travelled to Chile and hence to Chile’s Curicó Valley, some 200km south of the capital Santiago. Here he planted ungrafted vines from pre-phylloxera French origin on an expanse of land called La Estancia, in a little town called Molina.

He established there what, at that time, was a frontier technology winery with French equipment and machinery brought directly from France. It’s aim was to supply high quality wines for the domestic market. Soon after, Adriana Piffre de Vauban, Roger´s daughter, married Roberto Echeverría Rubio, and they had one child, Roberto Echeverría.

After graduating from Cornell, Roberto worked for eight years as an economist in the World Bank. He lived in Washington D.C., together with his wife Gloria and his children, and travelled intensively worldwide. In his frequent travels, he became aware of the tremendous potential that the production of fine wines had to satisfy the growing demands of more quality-oriented consumers.

In 1979 Roberto decided to return to Chile to continue his family tradition in winemaking, and to focus on emerging new market trends and opportunities. He thought he was coming back to join an ongoing winery operation, but he arrived in a country in which the wine industry was in the midst of a great depression. Many wineries had gone bankrupt, and very little wine was being exported. The family business was in jeopardy and the old winery in which he spent his summers was on the brink of disappearing.

Passionate about wine, and determined to preserve his ancestors’ winemaking tradition, he embarked on the greatest challenge of his life: projecting his winery into the future, transforming it into a modern, export-oriented, and family-owned and managed operation. It would take Roberto nearly 15 years of intense conviction and sacrifice to develop these radical changes, which included replanting the entire estate and building a new winery from the ground up, and to finally bring his first wine to the international market in 1993.

Echeverria Gran Reserva Pinot Noir - Hay Wines