Chile’s Elqui Valley is an unforgiving place to make wine. Isolated at the far southern edge of the Atacama Desert, the region is hot and relentlessly dry, cut into rugged transverse valleys and surrounded by mountains on all sides. And yet, El Tambo Viognier, crafted amidst these extreme conditions by expat winemaker Giorgio Flessati, is a surprisingly soft and lush white with lovely stone fruit flavors and distinctive minerality.

Born in Trento, Italy, into a long line of viticulturalists, Giorgio embraced wine production from a young age. He earned a degree in Oenology from the celebrated San Michele all’Adige school, then cut his teeth at wineries across France and Australia, ultimately landing back in Italy and taking up projects in Trentino, Sicily and Lagaria..

He’d probably have been content to continue working up and down the peninsula. But in the late 1990s, he got a call from his cousin Aldo Olivier—whose parents moved him and siblings to Chile some 40 years earlier—who wanted to try making wine near a small Elqui Valley village called El Tambo. Would he help?

Together, they established Viña Falerniam, the valley’s first official winery, which remains one of its top estates. As Decanter writes, “thanks to Giorgio, Elqui is…a most-talked-about valley for fine, well-defined varietal wine.”

For this elegant Viognier, grapes are hand harvested and transported to the winery (two miles away) in small bins to avoid bruising. The juice is then cold fermented to preserve those vibrant, mountain-fresh flavors and aged on its lees for a few months to enrich texture. The result is medium-bodied with peach, apricot spice and a touch of minerality on the finish.

As with any wine this unique, quantities are limited. Order soon to ensure your share.