Chapter 8 - Survival

Running a tiny wine business? In this economy? Many have called me crazy, and they may not be wrong. It is a dire time to be making wine, and just as dire a time to be selling it. Sitting behind my laptop writing the final chapter in the story of NR4 and NR5, I realize that the theme of these wines - “supervivencia” or survival - applies as much to the vines as to Nova Radix.  

I remember arriving on that remote hill in Itata with Carlos, the Spanish winemaker who joined Leo for harvest, having no clue how the weeks ahead of me would unfold. I was looking forward to Argentinian-style asados and fiestas, and Italian-style drives through the hills and boisterous wine festivals. I was expecting another harvest where hard work was always followed by hard play. 

But the 2025 harvest in Chile turned out quite differently. Hard work was followed by more hard work. The old vines’ struggle to survive was shared with the people I met. Leo, a winemaker who was battling forest fires in his vineyard. Zjos, a mother of four trying to raise a family in the middle of nowhere. 

It was a harvest of contrasts. Plenty of things went wrong in the winery (thankfully not with NR4 and NR5), but miracles kept appearing. The harvest team was small but I found a larger-than-life friend in Carlos. The winemaking was fully natural, but I never learned more about technique and precision. I slept so little, but never felt more connected to the vines, the animals and the soil. 

A winemaker once told me that you do not get the harvest you want. You get the harvest you need. And that proved true for me as well. In Itata, more than elsewhere, I learned that wine is not born from romance. Wine is born from survival - especially the wines I make with Nova Radix. 

Itata still exists, Leo is in the midst of the 2026 harvest, and I am planning for the arrival of NR4 & NR5, the bottling of NR6 and the harvest of NR7 as I am writing this. Survival is not the result of heroic acts or grand gestures. It is the result of people who keep showing up, with their time, their money and their belief: winemakers, importers, and adventurous wine drinkers like you.