Valle de la Puerta La Puerta Alta Bonarda 2010
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Agricultural engineer turned winemaker and motocross racing driver; Javier is one of those men whose energy never seems to run out. ?La Rioja’s desert is an unforgiving environment, where only the resourceful thrive. Working on farms, Javier put himself through college and landed a job as an intern at Valle de La Puerta, where he found his calling. Due to the estate´s remote location, Javier, with support from Julian (the company´s President and CEO) devised a plan: they would fly in consulting winemakers from around the country, learn all they could from their short visits and hustle until they could manage to do everything on their own. It payed off. Today he is head winemaker and estate manager. His La Puerta Bonarda Reserva has been selected by the Argentina Wine Awards as one of the top four wines of the country. He also has developed his own vineyards and launched his own line of wines labeled “Collovati”. The winery was built in 2002 to meet all the needs of modern winemaking, all stainless tanks and equipment,?adequate chilling and cooling, pneumatic bag press, controlled fermentation temperature, high quality wood treatments, pure yeast culture and inert gas use. ?This technology gives our team a huge say in the management and control of the quality of the wine. ?The winery started operations with the HACCP standards as part of its management ethos and Best Manufacturing Practices are in place to guarantee full traceability and quality control.
Bonarda is a name given to a handful of distinct grape varieties, mainly growing in Italy and in Argentina. In Lombardy’s Oltrepò Pavese and Emilia Romagna’s Colli Piacentini zones, the grape called Bonarda is actually Croatina. In Novara, Bonarda Novarese, often blended with Spanna (Nebbiolo), is actually Uva Rara. DNA profiling shows that most of the Bonarda in Argentina is actually identical to California’s Charbono—and Charbono is actually the Douce Noire grape from Savoie. Somm Secret—Bonarda Piemontese, an aromatic variety, is the only true Bonarda. Before phylloxera, it covered 30% of Piedmontese vineyard acreage.
With vineyards tretching along the eastern side of the Andes Mountains from Patagonia in the south to Salta in the north, Argentina is one of the world’s largest and most dynamic wine producing countries—and most important in South America.
Since the late 20th century vineyard investments, improved winery technology and a commitment to innovation have all contributed to the country’s burgeoning image as a producer of great wines at all price points. The climate here is diverse but generally continental and agreeable, with hot, dry summers and cold snowy winters—a positive, as snow melt from the Andes Mountains is used heavily to irrigate vineyards. Grapes very rarely have any difficulty achieving full ripeness.
Argentina’s famous Mendoza region, responsible for more than 70% of Argentina’s wine production, is further divided into several sub-regions, with Luján de Cuyo and the Uco Valley most noteworthy. Red wines dominate here, especially Malbec, the country’s star variety, while Chardonnay is the most successful white.
The province of San Juan is best known for blends of Bonarda and Syrah. Torrontés is a specialty of the La Rioja and Salta regions, the latter of which is also responsible for excellent Malbecs grown at very high elevation.