Nayan Gowda is the British born winemaker of Indian descent for Jardín Oculto, which makes wines from grapes grown from ancestral, ungrafted vines in the Cinti Valley of Bolivia. I haven’t met Nayan before, but I’ve wanted to speak with him for a long time and understand how he arrived in Bolivia. He’s a fascinating guy and the wines they are making in this corner of Bolivia, not far from Tarija, are really special. From what I’ve seen, the vineyards look more like a forest. Many are 200-years old and they vertically on molle and chañar trees, often more than 3 meters high. They have to be harvested by ladders, that’s how high they are.

I haven’t been to Cinti Valley and even to the Tarija area for many years, so my exposure to Jardin Oculto and other Bolivian wines has mostly been through Gustu in La Paz – which only serves Bolivian wines, not to mention spirits and beers. But it’s a new era emerging in winemaking in the country and Nayan and María Jose Granier, who owns the winery and comes from a well-known Bolivian winemaking family, are at the forefront of it. They are really exploring and experimenting with the country’s criolla grapes – the grape varieties that were developed in the Americas and once dominated, but were eventually displaced by better selling European varieties. Most that grew criolla grapes in recent years have done so for blending into cheap table wines, but winemakers like Nayan and others around the continent are looking at them differently now. It’s opening up new possibilities of wine around the region and it is giving me a lot to write about. - Nicholas Gill

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