We got into the vineyards today! Yesterday really.
We drove 1.5 miles south to the Uco Valley and the town of Tupangato. Still can't really see those darn Andes. They are hiding behind the clouds. We are heading to Atamisque winery. It is really more than just a winery. It is its own ecosystem of vineyards, orchards, a trout farm, restaurant and soon a golf course. Gorgeous place once you get to the areas that are irrigated. John from Denver says it looks just like Colorado, but they can't grow grapes. The grow chard, pinot noir, males, merlot and some other experimental stuff.
One cool thing I have never seen before is nets, not for the birds but to protect from the hail, serious hail like the size of grapefruit. I've seen hand sorting, twice, for the malbec coming in and this was for their rose! After the tour, we tasted the high end Atamisque label wines that are not even bottled yet. These were of course very tight, but you could tell a lot by the intensity. Comes on quick and hard. We saw some of the vines without nets and there was quite a difference. They make sparkling and still wines. At Nugget Markets, we sell the Catalpa label Pinot Noir. It has done really well for us and I will probably increase the line. Beautiful, well organized modern winery. The wines were very tight of course but they had tremendous concentration of fruit, and great acidity these will be really good some day.
Lunch on the lawn of the restaurant felt like we were shooting a cover for a food magazine. It was a perfect country meal on the lawn, food was preordered for us, amazing local ingredients mostly from the property. The trout was especially good. Of course we had M&M's as we have come to call it. Meat and Malbec. BBQed on their outdoor grill. The bus ride home was mostly a nap. Back to the hotel, meet at 9:30 dinner at midnight. This place wears on you, in a good way.