CHÂTEAU Defay: The ONLY Vineyard in Central America

Did you know that CHÂTEAU DEFAY is the only vineyard in Central America? Having had an awesome time wine tasting in Baja California (Mexico), we were keeping an eye out for vineyards throughout our travels in Central America!

But to our surprise there was only a single one. It has been set up by an American couple from Virginia in 2000 who fell in love with Guatemala. They quit their corporate jobs back home and purchased a piece of land in the area of Santa Maria de Jesus. They then transformed the former coffee plantation into a vineyard and even built a real chateau there!

But with no experience it wasn’t exactly a smooth ride. For the first 10 years of its existence it was very much an experimental vineyard. Many grape varieties were imported from abroad but didn’t grow well in the volcanic soil. Since 2007 the vineyard has been selling wine. The result? CHÂTEAU DEFAY offers 13 different wines, 6 whites, 5 reds and 2 roses.

What to expect?

The road to CHÂTEAU DEFAY leads you through the local village. You then follow a gravel road to the entrance but from there it gets pretty rough (but not for long). It definitely felt like proper off-road with our fully loaded motorbike! I’ve never done any off-road to visit a vineyard before and it was super fun. As we turned the corner at the bottom of the dirt road we saw the chateau and surrounding vineyards. The views were pretty amazing!

Once we parked our motorbike we made our way inside for the wine tasting. Next we took advantage of the beautiful terrace and enjoyed lunch from the restaurant with pretty awesome views! The restaurant aims to offer a European / Italien type of cuisine. It was a little pricey and average at best BUT this is to be expected when ordering European food in Central America. CHÂTEAU DEFAY definitely doesn’t offer fine cuisine, but that’s not why we came and that was totally fine by us!

How was the wine tasting experience?

Okay first of all I have to say that there was a lot of guesswork going on as we were relying on my spanish translation skills. So I probably missed a few bits. But we were surprised to learn that CHÂTEAU DEFAY hasn’t produced a single bottle of wine for roughly 10 years.

I was curious as to why and we were told that they had simply produced more bottles than they could sell so production was stopped. I know, pretty bizzare right? We also learned that as the quantity of wine was decreasing the price of it was rising. Nothing to do with grape variety or the year of the harvest!

A few years ago they wanted to start producing wine again but found that a lot of the vines were damaged. They have since been trying to recover them with a view of continuing to producing wine.

To summarise, it was the most bizzare wine tasting experience EVER !

Does CHÂTEAU DEFAY produce quality wine?

Honestly I didn’t rate it very highly. The better tasting wine was average at best! But that was okay for us. We didn’t come here to taste award-winning wine. We thought it was incredible that someone decided to start a vineyard in conditions most people would consider unsuitable.

Fiona doesn’t drink alcohol and I had to ride the motorcycle so only had small sips of all the varieties. We did actually end up buying a bottle of wine, because we thought it was a thoughtful gift for someone who was going to host us. But it wasn’t cheap (about 12 USD) and given that I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have bought any for myself after visiting the vineyard!

Is CHÂTEAU DEFAY worth visiting?

Yes, I think it’s a great little day trip from Antigua. It’s pretty unique. It’s also very beautiful. I liked the location which leads you through remote local villages if you make your way here independently. So if you like wine and want to visit CHÂTEAU DEFAY as a daytrip or when passing through I think it’s well worth it.

Just don’t be disappointed if you won’t see grapes on the vines or taste the best wine of your life. You can probably pick up a better bottle in the supermarket. But it’s a fun experience in my opinion nonetheless.

How to get here?

The vineyard is roughly 1 hour drive from Guatemala city or 30 min. from Antigua. We rode here on a fully loaded motorcycle from Antigua. The dirt road from the entrance to CHÂTEAU DEFAY was pretty rough. It was certainly my first off-road experience to access a vineyard and super fun.

Upon leaving we saw a bus dropping tourists off. So I’m pretty sure that tours (in Spanish at least) can be organised from Antigua. The bus stops nearer the entrance and you’ll need to walk down to CHÂTEAU DEFAY as the road is too rough and narrow for a bus to pass through. But the walk is short and very pretty!

Are you up for tasting wine in Central America’s only vineyard? It probably won’t compare to any wine tastings in South America but hope this blog post helped you decide if it’s worth a day trip 🙂