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Winemaker Name(s): Alvaro Espinoza and Juan-Carlos Faúndez
Our selections from Rayun represent the finest quality wine Chile has to offer at value prices. The know-how behind Rayun is exceptional—Chile's leading winemaking talent, Alvaro Espinoza, personally selects the vineyards and supervises the vinification of each Rayun wine.
We're hardly exaggerating when we say that there's nothing Espinoza can't do. He singlehandedly started a revolution in Chilean winemaking a decade ago with his dedication to organic and biodynamic viticulture. He's won more awards than his modest home in the Maipo Valley can hold; and he's widely recognized as one of the leading winemakers in all of South America, let alone in Chile. Espinoza explained that his work at Rayun is essentially an extension of what he's done at his own world-class estate Antiyal—finding the right vineyard to best express the personality of each wine grape.
Pinot Noir, for example, is exceptional in Burgundy because generations of growers have had hundreds of years to experiment and better understand the specific relationship of land and grape. In Chile, pioneering winemakers like Espinoza are digging deeper into their own soils, planting new clones and looking for the “sweet spot” for grapes such as Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.
It's a process that we too have explored with our Clearwater Creek selections in California—finding the best expression of a single grape and bottling it for you at a reasonable cost. So it's easy to understand why Rayun, both as a philosophy and a source of outstanding value wines, fits perfectly in our Chilean portfolio.
All Rayun wines are fermented in stainless steel tanks, to preserve freshness and their fruit-forward, approachable character.