French Wine Making Meets, Chilean fruit and Japanese sensibility.

PASCAL MARTY, VIÑA MARTY

Pascal Marty is the founder and winegrower at Viña Marty in Chile. The winery is his personal legacy project. He is a French winemaker who spent over 30 years at the world’s most iconic estates, including Château Mouton Rothschild, Opus One in Napa Valley, and Almaviva in Chile.

After helping create two of the most celebrated Bordeaux-style blends on two continents, Pascal chose Chile as his home. In 2008, he founded Viña Marty with a unique vision: to apply his unparalleled experience not to a single luxury label, but to a full range of wines that express the diversity of Chile’s valleys. Today, the winery is a true family of collaborators.

Viña Marty’s portfolio spans from approachable, everyday wines to iconic, terroir-driven bottles. Its most distinctive creation, the Goutte d’Argent line, was born from a five-year collaboration with Japanese sake producers, using sake yeast to craft an unexpectedly elegant and floral Sauvignon Blanc. This unique “three civilizations” story,  French expertise, Chilean fruit, and Japanese sensibility, is what makes Viña Marty truly one of a kind. 

What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?

The most authentic thing about Viña Marty is that it is my late-career legacy project. After my work as winemaker at Opus One and Almaviva, I chose to share my experience rather than build another exclusive icon.

Unlike many winemakers who spend a career at a single estate, I worked for over 30 years at the highest level in France, California, and Chile. After helping establish leading wineries in each region, I had nothing left to prove. Many would have retired or created a small, ultra-premium label.

Instead, in 2008, I founded Viña Marty as a synthesis of that experience. My goal was not to produce another 100-point wine for a limited audience, but to apply what I learned in Bordeaux, Napa, and Maipo across a full range—from accessible, high-quality wines to terroir-driven bottlings.

This is my way of making world-class wine more accessible. It reflects a career focused not on exclusivity, but on sharing knowledge and quality more broadly.

Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained. 

If I had no limits, I would create a permanent “Three Cultures Culinary & Wine Lab” in Curicó.

I’ve spent my career working across three distinct wine cultures—Bordeaux, Japan, and Chile—building relationships with chefs, sommeliers, and sake producers. This project would bring that network together.

Each year, I would invite a French chef, a Japanese sake master, and a Chilean chef to live and work at Viña Marty for a month, with full access to the vineyards and winemaking team. Free from commercial pressure, their goal would be to create new dishes and wine or sake pairings that reflect all three cultures.

The result would be an annual release of a Goutte d’Argent cuvée designed for those pairings, along with a book and short film documenting the process. We would present it through one-night events in Santiago, Tokyo, and Bordeaux. The aim is to position Viña Marty as a meeting point for these cultures—less a brand, more a bridge.

What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.

The wine that best represents Viña Marty is the Goutte d’Argent line, especially the Sauvignon Blanc.

It began not with a plan, but with curiosity. During my time in Japan, where Clos de Fa was well received, I spent years in discussion with a sake producers’ association. They eventually gave me access to sake yeast. In 2018, I used it in a small Sauvignon Blanc trial. Instead of power, it produced a wine that was elegant, floral, and textured.

The name, Goutte d’Argent (“Silver Drop”), came from a Japanese tasting note comparing the wine to a flow of silver. The creators of The Drops of God, who had previously featured my wines, helped design the label with a silver drop and Japanese kanji.

This wine breaks from Sauvignon Blanc norms. It is not driven by sharp acidity or herbaceousness, but by purity, floral character, and a rounded texture with subtle umami.

It reflects the three influences that define my work: French winemaking, Chilean terroir, and Japanese culture. More broadly, it expresses my goal—to create wines that connect cultures, tell a story, and offer a shared experience. Goutte d’Argent is not just a wine. It represents my approach to winemaking and the idea that wine can be a bridge between worlds. Stay tuned, this wine review is coming soon!

Bonus Question: What’s the one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?

Most people are surprised to learn that before wine, I wanted to be a chef.

Growing up in France, I was as drawn to the kitchen as I was to the vineyard. For me, wine and food have always been connected—a conversation rather than separate disciplines. That perspective deepened during my time in Japan, where I saw how seriously sake is paired with food.

That influence shaped the creation of Goutte d’Argent Sauvignon Blanc. I didn’t set out to make a different white wine. I wanted to create a wine that could function like sake—enhancing dishes and highlighting umami.

Even after working on wines like Opus One and Almaviva, I still think like a chef. I use grapes instead of ingredients, and I’m often more interested in what you’ll eat with the wine than the wine itself.