Something shines among the dry dust in this
corner of Patagonia
where the vineyards coexist with pumas, guanacos and wild boars
. It is quartz, a shiny mineral that the rain carries with other sediments from the depths of the stone ravines and scatters it over the sandy soil of the valley.
This very particular soil is found in
Valle Azul, a small town in the north of the province of Río Negro
, and it acquires these characteristics along only 5 kilometers in which bays are formed on the wall, that rocky plateau that accompanies the route of the river. And it is that soil, too, that
gives the wines that are born there unique characteristics
.
“
Here is a crucial and remarkably unusual chemical combination
, not only for Argentina but for the world. There is ash, volcanic potassium and high calcium carbonate content. As all this is eroded by the wind and integrated into the soil, it transfers its properties to the grapes,” explains Felipe Menéndez, the winegrower who has headed
the winery - called Ribera del Cuarzo
- since 2018.
Felipe may have inherited his passion for wine from
his maternal grandfather, Melchor Concha y Toro, founder of the famous Chilean winery
, or from his mentor, Nicolás Catena Zapata, with whom he has worked since he was 19 and manages other wineries in partnership. However, this seems to be his most personal project, in which he became involved along with his entire family and for which he worked tirelessly to carry it out even when he was on the verge of shipwreck.
The history of the Ribera del Cuarzo winery in Valle Azul: the discovery of an Italian countess
A pioneer in the region
was an Italian countess, Noemí Marone Cinzano, who set foot in these then virgin lands in 2001
and planted the first 5 hectares of vines. Owner of other vineyards in Tuscany, she says that when she saw the unique shape of the fence from a helicopter she knew that there was something special in this place.
The first bottles came out with the labels of Noemía, the winery she founded with her then partner, the Danish winemaker Hans Vinding Diers. But when the marriage ended, neither of them wanted to continue with this shared project.
It was the perfect opportunity for Felipe. “I had tried Noemí's wines in 2008 and they seemed unique to me. For the next ten years, throughout many trips,
I looked for a place in Patagonia to make wine but none was up to the task of Valle Azul
,” he recalls. A chance meeting with the countess in New York allowed him to reach an agreement with her to finally buy her winery.
He put together a luxury team with the winemaker Ernesto “Nesti” Bajda and
the first vintages excited him
, but he soon had to face a problem that he had not anticipated, and that made him think that his dream, perhaps, had come to an end.
The typical canyons of the fence in Valle Azul, Río Negro. Photo: Ribera del Cuarzo Winery.
“Unlike other vineyards in the area, close to the river, these are in the highest part of the fence. Noemí had built an irrigation system with pumps and an aqueduct that
carried the water for irrigation through about 5 kilometers, which had a very high electrical cost
, economically unviable in the long term," explains Felipe, who had a hard time resigning himself. .
He decided to explore the region in search of similar terrain and went out with his son Santos to tour the area on horseback along the Río Negro, but a wind storm led them to take refuge in the house of a local near Villa El Chocón, in Neuquen. Without knowing it,
they had found the person who would help them save their vineyard.
The water wells that saved the vineyard and the wines that conquer the world
The man who accommodated Felipe and his son,
a descendant of Araucanians and an expert in rhabdomancy
(a search for water without a scientific basis or method),
assured them that they would find it next to the fence.
With his help, in the following months they identified various places where, by drilling into the ground, the prediction was confirmed to everyone's surprise.
The water wells saved the Ribera del Cuarzo winery, in Valle Azul, Río Negro.
Today the winery has four wells that generate
(only with solar energy) around
200,000 liters per hour
, enough to supply irrigation for the vines already planted and those to come.
Currently they not only produce wines with grapes from the foot of the wall, but also with others from vineyards located on the banks of the Río Negro in nearby towns such as Mainqué, Cervantes, Darwin and Luis Beltrán.
With the
first vintages of Malbec
, which came out with the Araucana label, the team timidly made itself known in some select restaurants and wine bars in the country, where
bottles are now available for $32,000 or more
. Then he ventured into Pinot Noir, harvested in the middle of the pandemic, and blends, which balance a careful selection and little by little define the profile of wines much more identified by a terroir and a style than by the varietal.
Ribera del Cuarzo Malbec, one of the wines from Valle Azul, Río Negro, that are exported to the world.
Currently, with its Ribera del Cuarzo Classic, Especial and Parcela Única lines, Menéndez is proud to have reached the international market, because it already
exports to twenty-three countries such as the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
He says that he still meets, from time to time, Countess Noemí, whom he visits at her residence in Portugal, and tells her about his progress in this corner of the world. Judging by this present, the legacy left by the Italian pioneer seems to be in good hands.