Alpasión, Grand Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

The people behind this project are all wine lovers who decided to make a dream come true by making honest, iconic wines together. We decided to name our inaugural release “Alpasión,” a combination of the Spanish “alma” (soul) and “pasión” (passion). The Alpasión label features the fingerprints and signatures of all of the winery’s owners as testimony to friendship for life.

The Alpasión label features the fingerprints and signatures of all of the winery owners, underlining a highly personal, hands-on project and a partnership driven by passion and friendship for life. Even part of the vineyard is planted in the shape of a giant fingerprint.

Grapes grown in the high, Uco Valley sub-region of Mendoza are employed to make this robust full-bodied Malbec. The hand-harvested grapes are fermented whole in small concrete vats using indigenous yeast and the wine is moved through the winery by gravity flow: no pumps are used to move the wine. After a 15 day maceration and the malolactic fermentation the wine is aged for 10 months in new French oak Bordeaux barrels; no filtration is carried out prior to bottling. Full-flavoured, with a classic Malbec palate, plenty of pure, ripe, red and black fruit aromas, backed with notes of vanilla and smoke; it shows a good balance between fresh acidity and supple, silky tannins.