Vigno is a expression for Vignadores de Carignan, a new collaborative project to promote old vine Carignan wines from Maule (www.vigno.org). The name Vignadores is a play of words amongst the French vigneron which means at the same time winegrower and winemaker and the Spanish term for winegrower, viñador or viñatero, in the same way that Cariñena, the name of the city that gave the Spanish name to the vine variety and its French expression Carignan.

Old Carignan vines growing in the slopes of the drylands of the Maule Valley were a neglected treasure of the Chilean wine industry. It was first planted on a large scale in the early 1940s, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake in 1939, when the Ministry of Agriculture proposed encouraging the planting of Carignan to improve the region’s wines. The thinking was that the naturally high acidity and colour of Carignan would improve the local wines. Therefore, for more than 50 years the vineyards of Maule have been home to dry grown, old Carignan vines. Previously a workhorse variety that was used to blend, Chilean winemakers are now realizing they have a precious resource as they establishing Vigno under the rule of a minimum to make wines from the region with a minimum of 65% of the variety Carignan from vines of a minimum of 30 years old.

Vigno has 12 founder wineries of a variety of sizes and characteristics behind their objective: De Martino, García Schwaderer, Garage Wine Co, Gillmore, Lomas de Cauquenes, Meli, Miguel Torres, Morandé, Odfjell, Undurraga, Valdivieso and Viña Roja.