Altura Maxima: High Altitude Viticulture in Argentina

Posted March 30th, 2008 by Jen in features, health/cooking/food, history, product review
3 Comments »

The multimillionaire Swiss-born entrepreneur and winery magnate Donald Hess is switching his attention from Napa to a remote region of the Andes foothills in Argentina, in the province called Salta. In 2001, Hess added the Argentina holdings to his existing vineyards in California, South Africa, and Australia.

After a visit to the southern part of Salta in 1996, with his wife Ursula, Don Hess was directed to Cafayate, the center of wine production in the region. It was there that he drank an intriguing Malbec-Cabernet blend from Colomé, and there that he began fermenting the idea that he could plant a world class vineyard at over 9000 feet. As Hess explained,

When I go into the wine business, it is always because of the microclimate, and secondly, to have a good story. When you do something no one has done, like climb a mountain, it is a risk. If it works, I’ll have a great story and hopefully very good wine.

Hess now owns a vineyard in Colomé, along with a stunning hotel and art gallery which he built, about a four hours’ drive from Salta, in northwest Argentina. Colomé’s vineyards include century old vines that pre-date the deadly vine disease phylloxera, being planted on original French rootstock. This land encompasses about 96,000 acres, and then, of course, there is the 60,000 acres at Altura Maxima (near Payogasta) and another 865 acres at nearby El Arenal. Currently, just under 300 acres are being cultivated.

It’s the Altura Maxima property that is gaining fame these days, as this vineyard currently holds the world record for vineyard at the highest altitude. In a country where bottles of wine are marked with the specific altitudes of their vineyards, there is a machismo contest going on amongst the landlords over who can go the highest. To give an idea of the heights, the California vineyards top out at 3,000 feet, and Europe at 4,300 feet. In Argentina, vineyards average 5,500 feet, and Altura Maxima boasts vineyards at close to 10,000 feet.

The high altitude, while still a very experimental thing, is thought to be viticulturally advantageous. The extreme elevations give the vines an abundance of solar radiation, and some researchers think this increases the level of healthy polyphenols in red wine. The thinner air and lower humidity seem to cause the grapes to develop thicker skins, resulting in a more flavorful, aromatic, and tannic grape.

Argentina is clearly a special place for Donald and Ursula Hess, who now spend half the year there. They love the people, and in fact, when they bought Colomé, they inherited not only the oldest winery in Argentina, dating back to 1831, but also its 400 inhabitants. Hess has been kind to these natives, who previously were forced into slave labor. Colomé employs at least one person from each extended family. Hess takes time to train them, provides them with health insurance and has built facilities to meet their needs: a clinic, community center, and church.

Hess also takes great care of the land itself. At Colomé, he installed an Italian-made hydro-electic turbine for energy, he grows everything from the vines to the food he cultivates for the hotel using traditional biodynamic principles, and the entire estate is self-sufficient. You’ll find sheep and cattle there producing organic meat and milk, and their manure fertilizing the vines and gardens.

If you think you might want to go start a vineyard, keep in mind the timetable. Hess realizes that Argentina will probably be the cap of his career, because these ventures take a great deal of not only money, but time. Here is his projection:

If you start from scratch, it takes two years for the soil preparation, one year to set up the drip irrigation, five years to have a sixty percent crop. That makes eight years. Then another two aging in the winery, three for a reserve wine. So it’s a decade before you get your first money back.

Time will tell if Donald Hess’ high altitude experiment will pay off. As he battles the unique hurdles of the region - frost, hail, wild donkeys, minimum oxygen, and the Argentine leaf-cutting ant (which destroyed 13 acres of his first planting), Hess still presses on.

The Hess Group produces four wines at its Colomé vineyards, just three of which you can find in the United States in very limited quantities: Colomé Torrontes, Colomé Estate Malbec, and Colomé Reserva. If you have the opportunity to travel to Argentina, you’ll want to stay at Hess’ Estancia Colomé.

photo credit: Estancia Colomé and USA Today

Technorati Tags: Argentina, biodynamic viticulture, Coloma, Donald Hess, organic farming, high altitude viticulture, Salta, vineyard, viticulture, wine making, winery

Tags: Altura Maxima, Argentina wines, Donald Hess, grapes, vines, vineyard, winery

Rouge-Bleu: A Newbie Vine Farmer in Provence

Posted March 2nd, 2008 by Jen in features, france/french, health/cooking/food, history, product review
7 Comments »

I fell in love with wine when my uncle decided to buy three vine parcels in Chåteauneuf-du-Pape to re-create the family vineyard, Domaine du Banneret, which originally dates back from many centuries.

This begins the story of Domaine Rouge-Bleu. Jean-Marc Espinasse, the charming man behind this Provençal vineyard, went on from that first wine making adventure to begin his very own vineyard just over a year ago. He was offered 25 acres of old vines, and with his lovely American wife Kristin and their children, began the amazing task of creating Rouge-Bleu, along with renovating a nearly 400 year old Provençal farmhouse. I was immediately drawn into this story because of that endearing quality of a man living out his dream.

I stumbled upon Jean-Marc’s blog recently, and was excited when I saw that he and his wife were doing a west coast tour! But, I read his blog a few days too late, as he had already passed through Portland, just hours from me. I left a comment on his blog anyway, mentioning our dream of a vineyard on our property someday. I was so surprised to see an email several days ago titled Vineyard in the desert, from Jean-Marc! He asked the telling question:

Do you have underground water at around 5-10 yards deep in the soil?

I knew immediately I was in trouble. I responded that it was quite doubtful, since we had to drill through over 60 feet of solid rock, plus another 200 feet, to hit water when we installed our well. Monsieur Espinasse is a gracious but straightforward Frenchman, and gave me no-nonense advice:

I am afraid but I don’t think that vine is the kind of plant that would behave well where you live. I am also “deeply” convinced that irrigation is the worst thing you can give to a vine since they have natural genes to get rooted deep to find the water. I am sure you can find another farm crop to do there. Making wine is great but farming in general is always rewarding. Cheers.

Ah, well, let’s talk about Rouge-Bleu! Their “Dentelle” Cuvée is scheduled to be bottled in just over a week, and I imagine everyone is very excited. Organic and ancestral practices at Rouge-Bleu call for some interesting viticultural procedures. Jean-Marc’s latest post involves egg whites — don’t worry, they won’t end up in your bottle. Evidently, the albumin contained in egg whites aids in the clarifying process, and using them allows Jean-Marc to avoid too much filtration, which kills the natural sediments so vital to their natural wines.

What are the benefits of organic grape farming? Jean-Marc says that the combination of natural cultivation and harvesting at low yields allows the vines to produce their very best. The result will be good levels of alcohol, high levels of acidity, the right balance of sugar, and a promising aging.

Another term you’ll hear around Rouge-Bleu is biodynamic viticulture. It’s hard to define, as each grower will modify his practices to suit his needs, but it seems to go beyond organic farming. Biodynamic farming will also take into account timing, and, for example, apply certain soil applications according to traditional seasonal markers. A biodynamic approach to a vine disease, for instance, would be not to focus on how to kill the disease, but to ask why the plant is sick in the first place. There is something depleted in the soil, let’s fix the soil, instead of, there’s just something wrong with the vine. This makes sense, but biodynamic philosophy can also lead into mysticism, at which point I would depart.

Here’s a nice sampling of how Jean-Marc practically applies his farming philosophy:

Our Carignan grapes are very weak towards Oidium [fungus]. Using our tractor that pulls the sulfateuse would damage some vine shoots and would not permit to spray straight on the grapes. Since the surface we have is small, I decided to use the traditional manual sulfateuse last week which allowed me to be much more precise while spraying the grapes.

Due to all the rain we had, our baby vines have been completely surrounded with “weeds.” Leaving them would damage our vines because those herbs would drink all the water in the soil. But since we don’t use chemical weed killers and since our décavailloneuse can’t recognize a baby vine and would kill them, we have to remove those herbs by hand.

Provence is an ideal location for wine making, as Jean-Marc is discovering. The Mistral, which is the strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows through southern France and into the Mediterranean, can be deadly; however, the dry Mistral winds minimize vine disease and can return health to the vineyard. The stony ground and soil rich in calcium carbonate is quite amenable to vines and little else. The Mediterranean climate is famously favorable to the vines.

If you have any questions about Rouge-Bleu, be sure to check in at Jean-Marc’s website. I think I’ll be asking how to get my hands on some bottles of the upcoming Dentelle Cuvée and also the Mistral, which is scheduled to be released later this year. If you live in Houston, Texas, you’re in luck — French Country Wines imports the Domaine Rouge-Bleu wines.

photo credits: Rouge-Bleu

Technorati Tags: bottling wine, Provence, organic farming, biodynamic viticulture, Rouge-Bleu, vineyard, winery

Tags: France, grapes, organic vineyard, Provence, Rouge-Bleu, vines, vineyard, wine