Another day of visits in the Luján de Cuyo region, we headed to Las Compuertas (‘the gates’ of the Mendoza River), where we started at Finca Bandini. Laura, a lovely lady with perfect English that she told us was honed listening to the Cure, explained that the Bandini family who have business in Houston, Texas, are investing in a place to make wine and eventually to live. The estate is bordered by the Mendoza River, and while they draw their water from a well, two streams, or cauces, flow through the vineyards and replenish the town water supplies.
After some introductions we jumped back on the coach and drove through the vines, some harvested, some still bulging with grapes (all covered by hail nets) to the winery. This splendid building clearly reflected the vocation of the owner – an engineer’s paradise. An avenue of steel tanks, pristine grape handling equipment, concrete eggs and a collection of first and second use barriques seemed barely to fill its vast space – this is a winery with ambition! They own 77ha of vineyard, just at the start of the ‘Pre-Andes’, at 1,700m altitude, planted on what had been olive groves. In addition to the 30-40 year old vines that had already planted, they started more planting in 2014, and grow Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Gewurztraminer. In their second vineyard in the Uco Valley they also grow Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurztraminer and Chardonnay.
Michel Rolland has been involved in setting up the winery, and the attention to detail in all aspects of winemaking was clear. Back at the tasting room (munching on some ripe Malbec grapes en route), this became clear in the wines we tasted. We worked our way through a Malbec rosé, a blend of four white varieties, and then a series of Malbecs (or blends) of increasing complexity from fresh and zippy to seriously complex, rounded and worthy of time in bottle. And for fun we finished the tasting off with new wine that hadn’t even reached their list: a Blanc de Franc, a blend of Cabernet Franc (with very little skin contact) and Gewurztraminer which none of us had ever experienced before.
The cooler weather heralded by the cloudy skies actually turned out to be perfectly benign, and it was pleasant when we arrived at the Durigutti Family Winery to take a quick wander among the vines and herb garden, nursing a glass of fresh Malbec, before lunch.
In the 5 Suelos restaurant we had a spectacular five course tasting menu accompanied by five wines, beautifully presented and executed. With our amuse bouche we had a local vermut, and the delicious garlic soup was accompanied by a Semillon Naranja (ie orange wine made with skin contact). Our starters were paired with a Cordisco (the local name for Montepulciano d’Abruzzo) made in a fresh vibrant style. Mains were accompanied by two reds, of contrasting depth and complexity, a pure Malbec from 2023 and the Victoria from 2019 which had been aged for 3 years and also included Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Bonarda and Montepulciano in the blend. There is definitely more to Mendoza than Malbec!
Delicious puddings, grappa, for those of iron constitutions, and coffee completed our afternoon and having fulsomely thanked Janice the chef and the front of house team, we headed back to Mendoza somewhat unlikely to be seeking out anything to eat that evening!
