Kingston Family Vineyards specializes in small production Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Sauvignon Blanc from our hillside vineyards located in the far western reaches of the Casablanca Valley. In 2003, our first vintage, we produced a total of 450 cases. While coastal Casablanca is mostly known for its white wines, we are also championing its potential for cool-climate reds.

Our winemaker, Byron Kosuge, is from Napa where he made Saintsbury's Pinot Noir for 14 years. Evelyn Vidal, our assistant winemaker, manages our winery in Casablanca. We are among the few "garagistes" in Chile: Byron and Evelyn make our wines in small one-ton fermenters.

We brought our punch-down tool, and other pieces of winemaking equipment, down to Chile in a ski-bag from Napa. Our wines are unfiltered and unfined. The only pump our wines ever see is at bottling. Everything about our limited production wines is done by hand; we have even been known to climb into the occasional bin for a true pigeage.

From Byron Kosuge, Winemaker:

"When I first came to Chile I didn't know what to expect. On the hour long drive from the airport in Santiago to the Kingston farm in Casablanca I tried to absorb the countryside, soil and climate as best I could from the back seat of the car. I was struck by how similar the flora and terrain is to coastal California. But it's much more dramatic than California- much higher mountains which seem to rise pretty much steadily from the ocean to the cordillera of the Andes, and also less land mass between the two to heat up the climate. At the vineyard I walked up and down hills of decomposed granite planted to Pinot Noir and Syrah on their own roots, felt the strong sun on my neck and the cool breeze from the ocean and started thinking maybe…"