Bouchon history begins with an adventurous young French man’s dream almost a century and a half ago. Emile Bouchon left his little home of small winegrowers in Arveyres, near Burdeos, France, to board on a ship, towards Chile in the spring of 1887.
Emile came hired as a winemaker adviser and throughout many years of efforts, he achieved to own an antique wine cellar in Colchagua Valley, turning it into one of the most prominent vineyards of that age, tradition that his children Antonio and Abel would continue.
Upon returning from Bordeaux, France, where he studied enology, Julio Bouchon S. decided to look for a new terroir for pursuing Bouchon winegrowing project.
That was how Emile’s grandson fell in love with the granitic soils in the interior dry area in Maule Valley, acquiring Mingre state in 1977, a distant property, which had old dry farming vineyards, besides a cement tanks cellar and simple adobe constructions, some of them from the middle of the XIX century.
In Bouchon, the family is the origin, present and projection. Julio Bouchon L. joined the family project at the end of the XX century, in the midst of the age when Bouchon started to export its wines all over and needed a young view that will blend tradition and modernity. The siblings Juan and María did it a decade later.
From their professions and life experiences, the three siblings complement and encourage each other, giving Bouchon a new shift in which they experiment and break ground with other grape varieties and vinification methods.
As Bouchon, Nieuwoudt family has invested several generations making wines in South Africa at their wine cellar in Cederberg. In 2013, both families joined together to create Longavi project, a dream which combines valleys and varieties for letting know the distinctive part of Chilean wines all over the world.
In 2015, this latest Bouchon generation struck out on their own and re-launched “Las Mercedes”, creating wines that represent their own style under the freedom of a separate label.
