The Alta Elqui is as remote a winemaking region as exists on earth—a desert mountain valley of towering elevations. The vines in the region are only watered by the snow melt trickling down through the granitic subsoils and bedrock. Alvaro Flaño was drawn to the village of Alcohuaz because he believed that great wines could be begged from the poor granite slopes of that wild place. He planted a wide variety of European varietals to test what would survive the perilous climate and how the varietals would express the unknown terroirs. He planted the varietals that most shined through his experiment. This exciting work caught the attention of the great Chilean winemaker, Marcelo Retamal who joined Viñedos de Alchohuaz before the first vintage. Retarnal is one of the champions of the back-to-the-soil movement sweeping through Chile. At Viñedos de Alchohuaz, Reta made sure the plots were only ever farmed organically, and he brought a non-interventionist philosophy to the cellar. Each variety is hand harvested and crushed by foot in stone lagars. Fermentations take place spontaneously. After pressing, the wine flows by gravity into concrete eggs, Stockinger foudres, and French oak vats where it ages. Each harvest the cuvées are decided anew with careful tasting and blending. Sometimes they are blended and sometimes they are allowed to remain single-variety, single vineyard expressions. The wines that result stun in their deftness and balance.

RHU is named after a portal to the spirit world, a cheeky nod to the new-age adherents that flock to the Elqui Valley. This wine comes from sites at 2,000 meters on sand and decomposed granite of mostly syrah, with grenache, and small amounts of petite syrah. The wine is hand harvested and foot trod before it ferments in stone lagars with natural yeast. RHU ages two years in Stockinger foudres. The wine is gorgeous: of blueberries and spice, tar, shellfish, and a meaty minerality.