Marcelo Papa

The Path

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is the academic base behind Marcelo Papa’s technical approach. That training shows up in the way he talks about wine: disciplined, specific, and free of decoration for its own sake. In his current role as Technical Director and winemaker at Viña Concha y Toro, he sits inside one of Chile’s most recognizable wine names, where the work is to balance consistency, character, and restraint.

The Work Today

At Viña Concha y Toro in Chile, Marcelo Papa serves as Technical Director and winemaker. The job is built around blending, but not as a cover for differences; in his hands, blending becomes a way to translate site and variety into a finished wine that reads clearly in the glass. His thinking stays analytical, with close attention to how climate, grape variety, and regional direction shape the result. That approach gives the work its discipline. Rather than forcing wine toward a fixed idea, he treats it as something shaped through negotiation between season, place, and purpose. The role is technical, but it depends just as much on judgment and listening as on direction.

Signature

Marcelo's signature dishes include Casillero del Diablo and Amelia.

In Their Words “As winemakers, we have some tools to move the dial in style, but the terroir, in the end, is the terroir.”

Acclaim

His reputation comes less from a trophy case than from the scale of his current role and the clarity of his public thinking about Cabernet Sauvignon, Chilean wine, and blending. The authority here is practical: it comes from long practice and from saying, without ornament, what wine can do, what it cannot, and where the winemaker’s reach ends.