Clos Ouvert is a winery in the Maule Valley region of Chile.

Founder owner: It was founded by Louis-Antoine Luyt who sources grapes from small producers. His style of winemaking was influenced by natural wine producers such as Matthieu Lapierre of Domaine Lapierre in Morgon, in France’s Beaujolais region. Antoine explained his project to me, thus: ‘We work in Chile in the regions of Itata, Bío-Bío and Maule and exclusively with very old, ungrafted vines directly planted from seed, and which are dry farmed. We make the wines with zero intervention apart from minimal additions of sulfites. We work with some European grape varieties but mostly we work with Paìs and Mission. Clos Ouvert’s first wine was made from Paìs but now we work with a range of varieties from various different small producers and bottle the wines as single grape varieties from single sites.’

In 2010 Luyt’s home, cellar, barrels and thousands of bottles of wine were destroyed by an earthquake (Isabelle Legeron MW: 2014, p.193).

Estate vineyards: No.

Organic certification: 2016 No.

Wine name: Huaso, or Huasa in the feminine form is the Chilean term for a gaucho.

White wines

Moscatel D’Alexandrie

Pipeno Blanco

Sauvignon Blanc, Naturista

Semillon

Red wines

Carmenère | 2011 ‘13%. Carbonic maceration. 8 months in oak,’ (Jancis Robinson MW, 10 April 2014).

Huasa de Coronel del Mailue: Paìs.

Huasa de Pichihuedque: 2014 Red blend.

Huasa de Pilen Alto: 2013 Paìs.

Huasa de Trequilemu: 2012 Paìs, from Cauquenes. Vines on 220 year old roots which are re-grafted every 20-30 years (Jancis Robinson, 10 April 2014).

Paìs de Quenehuao: 2014 Paìs. 9 mg/l total sulphites (catalogue for RAW 2015).

Paìs de Yumbel

Pipeno Coelmu: Paìs. Itata Valley.

Pipeno Carrizal:

Pipeno Coronel del Maule:

Pipeno Portezuelo:

Pipeno Santa Juana:

Primavera: 2010 40% Carignan, 30% Paìs, 20% Cinsault, 10% Cabernet.

Contact

Clos Ouvert

Maule Valley, Chile

Website: www.louisantoineluyt.cl

Bibliography

Isabelle Legeron MW, Natural Wine, An introduction to organic and biodynamic wines grown naturally (2014, Cico Books, London & New York).

Jancis Robinson MW (10 April 2014), ‘Clos Ouvert and Envinate – flying light,’ www.jancisrobinson.com.

RAW wine fair 2015, London 17/18 May.