Cristóbal ‘Toti’ Undurraga
Koyle Family Vineyards, Chile
Not many winemakers have also been international sports stars, but Toti Undurraga spent four years on the Chilean athletics team during his studies at the Universidad Católica. He’s since swapped the 110m hurdles for a challenge of a different sort: making distinctive biodynamic wines in Colchagua.
After vintages in Bordeaux, Napa and the Hunter Valley, he worked for Kaiken in Argentina before joining his father, Alfonso Undurraga, three brothers and sister to set up Koyle. The aim was always to make wines with a sense of place from 80ha in Los Lingues, now supplemented with grapes from cooler, coastal Colchagua and the Itata Valley. Working with the French terroir specialists Claude and Lydia Bourguignon has enabled him to focus even more on site-specific wines. ‘My challenge is to understand what the vines give me and express that in the bottle,’ he explains. ‘Winemaking is just fine-tuning.’
Undurraga names the late Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux among his winemaking heroes, but his best reds are made not with Cabernet, but from a cuvée of Mourvèdre, Carignan, Syrah and Grenache (Cerro Basalto) and Carmenere with a little Cabernet Franc (the mould-breaking Cerro Basalto Cuartel G2).
Koyle, Cerro Basalto, Los Lingues, Colchagua Valley, Chile 2015 95
£ 27.50 Berry Bros & Rudd, Carruthers & Kent Cuvée of four Rhône grapes (Mourvèdre, Grenache, Carignan and Syrah) now in its third vintage. Wonderful focus, grip, spicy intensity, all supported by a stony minerality. Drink 2019-2025 Alc 14.5% ➢