When we caught up with Daniela earlier this week, another nearby fire had just passed through during the 2026 harvest:
“We are in the middle of three regions that are 90% for the forest industry, an absolute monoculture for that. That is the way we humans have been, and it makes it very hard to reverse. It’s not climate change, it’s humans being humans: selfish and greedy.
“Of course, the forestry and wood industry has to exist, but they could be going for lower yields, trying different varieties, but it’s not in their paradigm, not in consideration. They will never try. The non-native pines and eucalypts are incredibly flammable, and at the density they are planted, very dangerous.”
Despite the fires, the vineyards themselves have shown remarkable resilience.
“In Itata, even the youngest vines are 35 years old and because they are not irrigated they have very deep roots. Even the youngest have roots five to eight metres deep, older ones can have roots ten or twelve metres deep or more."
“We lost about five to eight percent of the vines that never recovered, but most of them that burnt in 2023 started sprouting again in 2024, then in 2025 they produced their first fruit again- low yield but good quality. In 2026 we have smoke damage thanks to passing fires again, so we will possibly not produce any wine again this year."
“This year the vines were really healthy. The 2023 fire was bad for business, but ironically very good for the health of the vineyard.”
“Pablo already had changed from traditional Itata pruning and started doing gentle pruning in 2022, so when he started recovering the plants, the yield was always going to be lower anyway, but we can see that system starting to pay off for the vines and their energy in 2026.”
One of the hardest realities after the fires was the perception from neighbouring growers that regenerative farming itself had become the problem.
"The vineyards that burnt worst in the area were ours ones that had been in regenerative agriculture longest, with so much dry grass in the parcels. Unfortunately that gave the neighbours here a scare. There are even less people that want to work in the regenerative way now because they just see it as a problem, so now they are spraying even more glyphosate, which is so frustrating."
“But there was no way we were going back to herbicides, so there was a bit of a ‘what now’ moment in looking at farming. How do we farm in a way that aligns with what we do, but mitigates the fire risk? We realised we need more regeneration, more humidity retained, more weeds, more moisture- the only way is to push further.”
Since 2023, much of Daniela & Pablo’s work has centred around understanding the soils on a microbial level and the wider ecosystem around the vineyards.
"The first thing we did was a microbiology analysis of the soil. It showed that after the fire the ratio between fungus and bacteria wasn’t right for the vineyard- too many bacteria, not enough fungus. We need more fungus in the vineyard, the ones that digest the minerals and nutrients from the soil to the vine’s root system."
“So we started making bio-complete compost to increase the fungus in the vineyard. Now we have a lab next to the winery with a microscope for us to analyse the soil. Pablo did a course to analyse the soil properly and now we can regularly check what is working, whether the compost is the right one. We need it to be more accurate.”
Alongside the soil work, they also began mapping the landscape itself more closely.
“We also did orthofotografía- one in 2023 and one in 2026- to see how things are changing. It's like a drone photograph and it allows you to see the water, the key lines to retain humidity, and really helps with landscaping. We started creating these small ponds to retain water. We can see the difference already. The grasses in the vines used to become dry in November, now they don’t begin to dry until January. We also introduced sheep and ducks last year to have more natural manure, more happy bacterias.”
