In 1996, Bernard Dauré persuaded his friends, Jean Pierre Cayard and Claude Florensa, to join him in creating a wine estate in Apalta, Chile. The wives of the three families (mothers and daughters) soon fell in love with Apalta's land in the Colchagua Valley, just a two-hour drive from Santiago. In their honor, the winery was named: Viña las Niñas (wines of the girls). Today, Las Ninãs owns 160 hectares of vineyard planted with cabernet-sauvignon, camenere, syrah, mourvèdre, grenache, merlot, sauvignon-blanc and chardonnay. Mathias Klotz designed and built the cellar. Anno 2021, Las Ninas is an independent wine company.
In the local indigenous dialect, Apalta means "earthquake," the land itself shaped like a small horseshoe-shaped valley. Sheltered to the North, East and West by hills, to an altitude of about 600 meters and bathed in the gentle breeze that blows between the mountain range of the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The Tinguiririca River marks the end of the valley south of Apalta. This river regulates temperature and provides the water needed for irrigation. The soil is partly of sandy clay, but also with a rocky volcanic mixture in other places, with average summer temperatures of around 23°C.
Little by little, Las Niñas has come to understand the terroir better, to ensure the production of top-quality grapes, allowing them to produce some of the most remarkable wines in Chile. Today, Apalta is one of the most prestigious and award-winning regions in the world and has been a legally protected designation of origin since 2018.