Anakena

In the late 1990s, Felipe Ibáñez and Jorge Gutiérrez, who had been friends since childhood, founded Viña Anakena in Alto Cachapoal, at the foothills of the Andes Mountains with the goal of crafting elegant, innovative, and distinctly New World wines that reflected their origin and Chile’s potential as a producer of world-class fine wines.

Convinced that high quality was synonymous with distinction, they visited the world’s most renowned wine regions to learn the latest viticultural and enological techniques and bring them home to Chile along with most up-to-date technology for crafting fine wines. In 1999 they planted their first vineyard in Alto Cachapoal and built the Viña Anakena winery, leaving no detail to chance. This outstanding facility is modern, functional, and beautifully finished.

Today, Viña Anakena has 145 hectares in Alto Cachapoal, 125 hectares in Leyda, 43 hectares in Peumo —the sector of the Cachapoal Valley closest to the coast— and 44 hectares planted in the Colchagua Valley. Anakena wines are now consumed in more than 50 countries around the world and are consistently recognized by the most demanding international wine critics.

Our winery and vineyard are located at the foothills of the Andes Mountains, approximately 450 m (1,476 ft) above sea level and 100 km (62 mi) south of Santiago. The area has a Mediterranean climate with cold, rainy winters that receive an average of 520 mm (20.5 in) of precipitation concentrated during the winter months. Summer temperatures range from daytime highs of 30ºC to nighttime lows of 9ºC (86º/48ºF, respectively), which allows the grapes to ripen slowly over the summer.

The vineyard’s annual heat summation is 1,744 degree days, with 1598 of these falling during the growing season from October to March. Due to the absence of rainfall during the ripening period, the grapes can be harvested at the optimal time.

The vineyard sits on an ancient riverbed millions of years old, which explains the loam soil (with similar proportions of sand, clay, and silt) in the upper 30 cm (11.8 in) and the loam and 50% stone mixture down to 70 cm (27.6 in). Below this is pure stone, which provides excellent drainage and incomparable growing conditions.

The vines are drip irrigated in accordance with the respective soil types, which were identified in a study that included two soil pits (1 m wide x 1 m long x 1 m deep) per hectare, or more than 300 pits in total. The study identified the sectors that retain less moisture, in order to reach uniform levels throughout the vineyard.

The vineyards are planted to two different densities in accordance with the soil studies: The sectors with shallower soils and less moisture retention are planted to 2.3 m x 1.2 m, and those with greater moisture retention to 2.3 m x 1.5 m.

The vineyard consists of 145 hectares planted to nine different varieties, all bilaterally trellised and spur pruned, and for the Carmenere and Malbec, which are cane pruned.

At Viña Anakena, the quality of our wines is more than a goal—it is a core value. Our work is guided by the pursuit of excellence and attaining the highest possible quality. Our unique style in crafting fine wines enables us to offer special, distinctive wine that satisfy the most demanding consumers. We want our wines to reflect their origins in our own vineyards, located in Chile’s best terroirs, as well as the experience and vision of our viticultural and winemaking team.

Anakena is actively committed to caring for the environment and promoting integrated agriculture that ensures a perfect balance in our vineyards and guarantees that our wines are produced sustainably and responsibly. This approach in the vineyards combined with our use of environmentally friendly supplies in our wineries constitutes one of Viña Anakena’s main pillars.
In September 2003 Anakena signed a Clean Production Agreement (CPA) pledging to adopt all measures needed to ensure the conservation of the environment. Specifically, the agreement incorporates current legal environmental, hygiene, and labor standards that are applicable in the sector, as well as standards for discharging liquid industrial waste and procedures for the safe management of solid industrial waste.

In 2010, Viña Anakena joined the rest of the Chilean wine industry in formulating an agreement to protect the environment and pledge its corporate social responsibility through a Sustainability Program.

For Viña Anakena, sustainability is more than just a catchphrase. It goes beyond purely ecological concerns related to producing high quality fine grapes to embrace all three components of a responsible company’s operation: the environment, people, and economics. Responding to the Chilean wine industry’s strong commitment in these areas, Wines of Chile has proactively developed a National Sustainability Code that outlines and defines the environmental and social dimensions in each winery that will be evaluated and audited by an external agency. The Sustainability Code that was developed requires participating wineries to comply with a protocol that governs all actions and practices throughout the entire production chain. Added to this evaluation are our GRI reports, which are a requirement of our certification. In December 2011, Viña Anakena performed outstandingly among the first 14 wineries in Chile to obtain their Sustainability Certification after successfully meeting the requirements of the protocol.