L'Entremetteuse, "Jardin Secret" 2021

L'entremetteuse is a new project started by Laurence Réal in the central Chilean Colchagua Valley, just south of Santiago. Slightly off the beaten path for the current Chilean Natural Wine Revolution (occurring a bit farther south in the Itata and Biobio Valleys), Laurence's project does indeed stand apart. Rather than taking up the mantle of the deep viticultural heritage of the Chilean south (spotlighting the Pipeño specialties from heirloom, multi-century-old vines of País), hers is an endeavor of a more personal scale. Wanting to make honest wines that "reclaim the human scale" in the midst of a bloated, conservative Chilean wine industry in the country's north -- Laurence originally landed in Chile in 1994 after study in France and worked her way through the Chilean wine world before seeing the desperate need to make use of the full natural fruits of the Chilean climate/position/landscape. The inspiration, despite the distance and distinct cultural motivations being different, is very much the same as the rest of what's happening in Chile's natural movement at the moment. In the end, the spirit of the wines does indeed find kinship with the pipeños of the south -- bright, earnest, smoky, mixing particular rusticity with purity of fruit, this is how it was always meant to be, it just got lost along the way.