Diego Rivera is the Head Winemaker and Viticulturist at Viña Garcés Silva in Leyda Valley, Chile. Here, he oversees the Amayna and Boya portfolios in Chile’s coastal Leyda Valley.
He studied Agronomy and Enology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile before gaining hands-on experience abroad, including making artisanal cider in England and completing a harvest in Burgundy. That time in France shaped his respect for terroir and a restrained approach to winemaking.
Drawn back to the coast of Chile, Rivera has spent more than a decade working in Leyda, focusing on its cool, maritime conditions. At Garcés Silva, he has played a key role in the estate’s transition to 100% organic viticulture. In the cellar, he avoids heavy intervention, aiming for balance and clarity. His wines reflect the tension, freshness, and subtle salinity that define this coastal region. His approach is straightforward: let the vineyard speak, and don’t get in the way. Media Inquiries: Diego Rivera drivera@vgs.cl | https://vgs.cl/en/
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
The defining attribute of Viña Garcés Silva is its role as a family-led pioneer of Leyda Valley’s coastal potential. When the Garcés Silva family planted their first vines in 1999, the area was an unproven pastoral landscape with no established vineyards—and no reliable water source. In response, the family co-founded an eight-kilometer pipeline from the Maipo River, a long-term investment that made viticulture possible.
Today, the estate’s identity is shaped by its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. The Humboldt Current brings cool air, morning fog, and slow, even ripening. The resulting wines—Amayna and Boya—are defined by natural acidity, balance, and a subtle coastal salinity.
The estate is farmed under 100% organic viticulture, reflecting a generational approach to land stewardship. In the cellar, intervention is kept to a minimum to preserve site expression.
Viña Garcés Silva remains a boutique, estate-grown winery focused on precise, cool-climate wines that reflect a clear coastal origin.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
With no constraints, the vision would be a long-term exploration of Chile’s most extreme and overlooked terroirs—an ongoing search for the country’s hidden edges.
The focus would be on sites most would dismiss: a wind-swept cliff in the far south with fractured slate soils, high-altitude pockets of volcanic ash in the Andes, or isolated seams of marine limestone along the coast. Places where yields are low, logistics are difficult, and conventional thinking says not to plant.
Each site would be matched with a single, precise variety—Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, or something less expected—chosen to translate that landscape. Production would remain intentionally small: a few barrels per site, no large-scale winery, no attempt to standardize.
Chile’s scale and diversity are well known, but much of its potential remains unexplored. The goal would be to document it—one site at a time—through a series of small wines that reflect place with clarity. A collection of quiet, site-driven wines. Less a portfolio, more a map.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Without question, the wine is Amayna Sauvignon Blanc—our flagship and first vintage (2003), and a wine that helped redefine Chilean Sauvignon Blanc. The name “Amayna” refers to the calm that follows a coastal storm—a moment when the ocean settles into stillness. That idea mirrors the wine itself: a balance between the raw energy of the Pacific and a more measured, deliberate elegance.
This is not a typical cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc. Rather than emphasizing sharpness or austerity, the grapes are allowed to ripen slowly under persistent marine influence. The result is a wine that holds tension without sacrificing depth. It shows freshness and a clear coastal imprint, with a subtle saline edge, as well as concentration, texture, and aromatic complexity. It moves beyond a simple aperitif style into something more structured and age-worthy. Amayna Sauvignon Blanc defines both the place and the approach—coastal, restrained, and built with intent. Read my review of this coastal Sauvignon Blanc here.
Bonus Question: Why Winemaking?
For me, winemaking is less a profession than a connection to something enduring. It places you inside a craft shaped over thousands of years—one where each generation faces the same uncertainties, looks to the same skies, and works with the same sense of anticipation at harvest.
What sets wine apart is its relationship with time. It is one of the few things we create that can evolve for decades, even centuries. A bottle made today can be opened years from now and still carry a clear imprint of its origin—its vintage, its place, its conditions. In that sense, it becomes a record.
Reaching that point requires attention to detail at every level: the vine, the soil, and the microbial life that drives fermentation. The role of the winemaker is not to impose, but to interpret.
Winemaking also forces a different pace. It follows natural cycles that cannot be rushed or controlled. Over time, you understand that you are not making the wine so much as guiding it—working at the intersection of nature, time, and human intent.