His father, don Germán, was a viticulturist who spent most of his career in front of Viña San Pedro's vineyards where Alberto grew up, literally in the middle of the vines. It was not a surprise then, that he decided to study Agronomy in the Catholic University, in Santiago.

A few years later and as a natural consequence, he started to act as wine and grape broker, selling the production of small owners to the big Chilean wineries. He soon became the most important Chilean broker in this field, position that he holds today by far. There is hardly any Chilean person or Company involved in the wine business that has not dealt with Alberto Siegel at least once.

Alberto founded Viña Siegel in 1980, planting vineyards in Colchagua and building the Winery in Santa Cruz. At the beginning, Viña Siegel only sold bulk wines to the biggest Chilean wineries, but in 1997, Alberto decided to enter the bottled wines business, and made the necessary investments to go ahead with this project. Now, the Winery has a capacity of 2 million gallons and the Company owns over 1,300 acres of vineyards in Colchagua.

The Winemaker

Jimena Egaña has been Chief Winemaker in Viña Siegel since mid 1999. She is 30 years old and studied Enology in the Catholic University in Santiago .

When she finished her studies in Santiago, she started to work at the Cooperativa de Curicó, a very traditional winemaking facility located in the town of Curicó, some 100 miles south of Santiago. After 3 years there she moved to Viña San Pedro, in Molina, a further 20 miles south. This Company is the second largest wine producer in Chile . Jimena was in charge of one of the brands and worked in San Pedro for four years.

In mid 1999 Viña Siegel had just started producing branded wines under El Crucero label. In charge of winemaking was Mario Geisse, one of the better known Chilean winemakers and consultant to different Chilean wineries. By then he realized that Siegel was needing a full time winemaker and recommended Jimena to Mr. Siegel, who hired her.

Under Jimena's supervision Viña Siegel has performed two very difficult but successful vintages. El Crucero and other branded wines have improved year after year, and soon some other premium wines will be produced.