Clos Andino

We got to know Clos Andino’s wines at Movi, the association of small Chilean wine producers when we started this project right in the middle of protests and curfews in Chile.  For this reason, we were not able to meet with Jose Luis Bouquillard, the general manager of Clos Andino, but his colleagues kindly introduced his wines.  That’s all it took for us to want to work with Clos Andino.  That’s the magic of Jose Luis and his wines.  We loved the fact that we did not need the producer of the wines to tell us anything about his wines.  The wine itself told us everything we needed to know.  It was akin to a blind tasting and we loved it from the get go.  Later we got to know Jose Luis and all we expected was confirmed.  We are thrilled to have him in our portfolio and we know you’ll love having his wine in your glass. 

 Jose Luis is a French native from Bordeaux with strong ties to the wine industry and that is a very strong star to this story.  Jose Luis moved to Chile and met his wife and started Clos Andino.  We would describe Jose Luis as a French by birth, Chilean by choice, but vintner at heart.  With old world wine roots Jose Luis brought the “terroir” concept to Chile.  The fusion of old world and new world is what you get in Clos Andino.  This may sound very vague and confusing and you are right.  New and old-world wine can mean different things to different people.  We’ll try to explain briefly in our view what this means.  Europe, old world, is the origin of wine as we know it.  The terroir, or land, is at the heart of production in Europe.  Wines reflect each land and people understand that a Sancerre comes from a region in the Loire Valley that is supposed to meet a number of requirements of the appellation.  In the new world, it is more about the grape varietal.  Clos Andino brings these two concepts together trying to find the best match between the grape varietal with the terroir where each can be best produced.  Moreover, the grape varietal in Chile will undoubtedly be different and that, in part, is where the magic of this wine comes from.  In short, the modern version of French wines.  It is hard to put in words the quality of these wines so you have to try them to understand what we are talking about, but believe us when we tell you that it will be a fun trip through France and Chile in just one sip.  You’ll fall in love with these wines.