Pedro Parra Vinista Pais

País

Itata Valley, Chile

Pedro Parra is a man obsessed with terroir. Born in Itata, a small, remote wine region in the Bio Bio area of southern Chile, Pedro has spent his adult life learning about the soils that make great wines the world over. After earning a PhD in terroir from the Paris Center of Agriculture, and with six years’ experience in French terroirs, he has gone on to consult for wineries like Jean-Marc Roulot, Marco Marengo, Liger Belair, Altos las Hormigas, Chapter 24, and Zuccardi, to name a few. Today, he brings this focus on unique terroirs to his home on Itata’s granite slopes, hoping to give them the global profile they deserve. Within the granitic areas, Pedro prefers to focus on the sandy quartz granite soils, as they force roots deeper than clay soils and therefore express the terroir better. Pedro says that Itata reminds him of places like Galicia, Barolo, and Morgon: places with a long-standing tradition of winemaking, but relatively unknown to the world until recently. With this project, he hopes to also help the local farmers who have protected their old vines from industrial wine producers who would have them tear out their Cinsault and Pais in favor of the glut of Bordeaux varietals that have come to dominate the Chilean wine market.