Pisco Thomas Gray was born at Viña Kunza, in the Huasco Valley, at the southern tip of the Atacama Desert. The name is a family tribute. Thomas Gray arrived from England in the valley around 1890, and with him began our family's history in this land. He did not found the winery. He was the one who laid the roots that, generations later, allowed his great-grandson, Fernando González Gray, to plant the first vines and found Viña Kunza in 2017. Today, the project is led by his great-great-grandson. Each bottle tells that story of continuity, and in our winery, we preserve a small family museum with his books, letters to his daughter Mariana, coins, and newspapers from that era.
A pisco is, above all, the expression of a grape. The three Thomas Gray piscos are made 100% with Moscatel de Alejandría, a traditional grape of the Huasco Valley that adapts to the desert climate. We grow it in our own vineyard, at 300 m.a.s.l., on calcareous and clay soils of alluvial origin that provide minerality. It is a desert coastal terroir, not a high-altitude one, where the challenge is aridity.
Water comes from the mountains, through the Santa Juana Reservoir and the Buena Esperanza Canal. We manage it with a technical drip irrigation system, calibrated with our own weather station that measures how much water the vine loses. The irrigation pumps run on solar photovoltaic energy, and the residues from the winemaking process return to the vineyard as compost. In a place where water is the scarcest resource, taking care of it is part of the quality of the product.
We control the entire process: cultivation, harvest, winemaking, and distillation all occur in the same place, under the same family. For us, that is what makes the pisco artisanal.
We distill using simple distillation and select only the heart of the distillate, the cleanest and most expressive cut, leaving out the heads and tails. This results in a pisco with a floral aroma and silky body, that respects the character of the grape without disguising it. It is a way of producing that prioritizes purity and fidelity to the fruit over volume.
Our Three Piscos
- Thomas Gray (Classic), 40°. It is the purest expression of the grape. After distillation, it rests for one year in stainless steel, without wood, to preserve the floral aroma and freshness of the Moscatel. Gold Medal at Catad'or World Wine Awards Chile 2024 and Silver Medal at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles Spirits Selection 2023.
- Thomas Gray Anochecer, 45°. It spends 24 months in first-use French oak barrels. It is a golden pisco, with warm notes of vanilla and honey.
- Thomas Gray Amanecer, 45°. It spends 24 months in second-use French oak barrels, which previously held our Syrah. That memory of the wine gives it a pink hue and notes of cocoa and tobacco. It is an expression that can only be born in a winery that also makes wine.
Amanecer and Anochecer are born from the same base as the Classic and show how a single grape and a single origin give different results depending on the wood. The name of both also comes from the desert: the light of the first sun and the last light of the day.
Find us at:
@pisco_thomasgray
@vinakunza
vinakunza.cl
