History

In 1546, don Pedro de Valdivia presented to Mayor of Santiago, don Diego García de Cáceres, the lands of Encomienda APALTAS –the latter term meaning earthquake in the native language, Mapudungun-. The boundaries of the Encomienda were Cachapoal River to the North and Claro River to the South.

Years later, this land awarded was dismembered, with Estancia Mendoza, a 12,000 ha (29,652.65 ac) estate, being one of the subdivisions. Its owner, don Gaspar de Ahumada y Mendoza, built its manors and chapel in what nowadays is the Benedictine Nunnery of the city of Rengo. Its pasturelands were: El Retiro, Camarico, Rosario, Apaltas, Delirio, Esmeralda, Santa Isabel and Naicura.

Don Manuel Covarrubias Ortúzar and his wife, doña Dolores Valdés Bascuñán, partially purchased –beginning in 1852– the pastures of Apalta and Delirio. And it was their son, Eduardo Covarrubias Valdés, along with his wife, Berta Sánchez Santa María, who at the inception of the 20th century started the intensive exploitation of those lands.

A family tradition was thus begun. One that later on would become one of the biggest fruit producing and exporting companies in Chile, reaching the most relevant international markets due to the technology implemented, and the dedication and care devoted to each and every one of its products, always at the forefront of the industry.

Berta Covarrubias Sánchez, daughter of the foregoing couple, married to Arturo Domínguez Barros, and as of 1943, and together with their 12 children, they made out of these lands a place of shelter and work that is nowadays shared by their over 300 descendants.
That is Our History.