Ver Sacrum Geisha Dragon Del Desierto

“Please keep in mind that this is not a conventional project. The winery is my garage and a rented warehouse. Ver Sacrum is the brainchild of a small group of viticultors / winemakers, baptized as “Team Grenachista”. The aim of the project is to produce a comeback of the Mediterranean varieties that Argentina lost after the 1950´s in favour of Malbec plantings. We grow Grenache Noir, Mourvèdre, Roussanne, Marsanne, Syrah, Mencía, Carignan, Teroldego and Nebbiolo, as well as some Malbec, Cab Franc and Pinot Noir. We cultivate three different vineyards in three distinctive terroirs: Los Chacayes (Uco Valley), planted in 2011 and most of our fruit comes from here, Barrancas (Maipú), planted in 1947, and Cruz de Piedra (Maipú) re-planted in 2016, with an experimental vineyard.

The Barrancas vineyard no longer exists, 2016 was the last harvest, and we have replaced it with 5 hectares of Grenache planted in Alto Verde, east of Mendoza city. As I said before, we are primarily vignerons, that make wine as a consequence of our work, research and passion for the field. Therefore, since we want to “bottle the vineyard”, we use somehow primitive, low-intervention, rudimentary techniques of vinification. Our wines tend to be more fluid, we praise drinkability; less alcoholic, we rarely harvest over 23 brix; naturally more acidic, linear, sharper, fruit-driven wines; no new oak or no oak at all; very gastronomic, easy to pair with food; naked, direct, but precise and elegant, no “make-up”; we ferment with airborne yeast only; we don’t correct the wines, acidify, no homogenized vintages; we like to show climate as well.”

Viognier, Marsanne, Criolla Blanca

An utterly beguiling white wine from a winemaker whose appetite for experimentation – and strange labels! – seems to know no bounds. 70% Viognier, 20% Marsanne and 10% Pedro Giménez (Criolla Blanca) co-fermented with airborne yeast in a single raw concrete 3,000 litre egg-shaped fermenter with 35 days’ open / oxidative fermentation. 90% of the wine stays in the egg sur lie for 11 months; the other 10% is aged under flor in French oak barrels before being back blended with the main body of the wine. The final wine is then aged for a further 12 months in bottle prior to release.

An incredibly fresh wine given the winemaking techniques, yet with a texture verging on voluptuous. Lovely fresh-baked bread notes atop supple melon and pineapple aromas, rich yet precise in the mouth. Gorgeous.