introduction
The vineyard has been created by 4 brothers in Barrancas Estate, Mendoza, in 2005. Today, they own about 300 hectares and the winery produces 3 million liters in steel tanks and epoxy-sealed concrete pools. The vineyard tends to innovate with new high-tech machines. They edge their wine in French and American barrels. They produce numerous grapes varieties: Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Shiraz, Petit Verdot, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Semillon.
work time
During our stay, we’ve worked with Eduardo and Hernan, the two winemakers. We have participated in their experiment around Malbec. Indeed, Finca Agostino is involved in an project gathering many Argentinian vineyards that intends to identify the soil’s impact on Malbec specificities. The goal of this experiment is to determine the flavors of Malbec in different areas and therefore to identify a terroir. Concretely, we’ve helped picking some Malbec grapes in the vineyard, we’ve counted the number of grapes in each vine plant depending on its location. The next step will be microfermentation for these grapes gathered. Then, we’ll also be able to know the yields of this grapes variety in a specific terroir.
We’ve also contributed to the quality check process on grapes arriving from their vines. This control enables the winemaker to make sure that their grapes are healthy enough to produce high quality wines. To do so, we’ve determined how well the grapes have been harvested, by checking several points such as the presence of leaves. Then, we’ve checked the transport’s impact on the grapes and finally we’ve focused on the conditions of each grape to identify any potential illness that would damage the wine quality. The main illness affecting the grapes are the peronospora – a pathogen which infects the leaves and the branches, botrytris – a plant parasite that makes rotted grapes, or even more if grapes have been affected by hail.
