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Set upon a ridge overlooking the valley, the new Clos Apalta winery emerges from the earth with curved pillars of native wood jutting into the sky, encircling the eye-shaped winery. Much like Chile’s modern wine industry, the winery is new, organic, strikingly if not defiantly modern, beautiful and well financed. We entered the new winery through the “harvest room,” which was simply a large, empty room. During harvest time, however, the room is filled with tables where workers de-stem and sort by hand the grape clusters that were also picked by hand. No machines are used in harvesting the grapes that go into Clos Apalta, as evidenced by the room devoid of machinery. Along the northern wall, square slabs of cement imprinted with worker hands hang in tribute to the continuance of heritage, dedication and artistry that go into making the wine.

We were shown through a short corridor of ultra modern glass, stone and wood, to the fermentation room where we looked down upon 21 towering, new, French oak vats encircling the elliptical room. The state-of-the-art winery employs a gravitational flow system to gently move wine from the tanks to the barrels and then to the bottle, minimizing the use of mechanical pumps and vacuums, which may adversely affect the wine. We had entered the winery through the harvest room located on the fourth level of the winery. From the harvest room, the grapes are simply brought over to the fermentation tanks, which are then filled from the top. The lower four levels of the winery are actually underground – the two levels of barrel rooms are located directly below the fermentation room, the blending vats are located below the barrel rooms, and the bottling facility is located below the blending vats.

We walked down a winding, circular stairwell reminiscent of the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, and entered the first year barrel room, where the aging process for Clos Apalta begins. The dramatically lit room housed rows and rows of French oak barrels made by five different companies to Casa Lapostolle’s specifications. The ceiling, like the ceiling to the fermentation room, was lined with raulí, a gorgeous, expensive, reddish-toned wood indigenous to Chile, which gave the room a luxurious yet natural and organic feeling. It is apparent that no expense was spared in creating not only the most modern, but also the most beautiful winery.

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