More Wineries

George, our unofficial guide, arranged for two cars to take us around the valley today.  We started with a visit to KDS Hecha Mano where high quality knives and scissors are hand made.  We were shown the steele plates that are cut into strips, then cut to the basic shape of the knife, fired in 1000° C kilns before being honed into a knife blade, buffed and shined.  They make their own handles from special woods or antlers.  I believe we all made a purchase or two!

The Masi Winery is an Italy company and most all of their wine is shipped to the parent company in Italy.  They grow Malbec, Torrentes and Corvina grapes.  They have a unique process called Proxximiento whereby the grapes are picked then placed on racks to reduce some of the liquid in the grape and to grow a special mold on the skin.  The corvina grapes are then placed in a tank to ferment.  Then the Malbec grapes are picked, dried and placed in with the fermented Corvina grapes to ferment again.  This double fermentation is unique to Argentina.  For this reason and because this is an Italian wine as opposed to an Argentinian wine, they are having a hard time breaking into the Argentine market.

We had lunch at the Bousquet Winery with food and their wine paired.  After all that wine and food, the girls all went back to the lodge and the guys went to the Atamisque Winery where they learned another way of producing wine.

This winery had a unique setup to the fermentation tanks that none had seen before. There was a concrete floor above each row of tanks and with the tanks a level below the crushing area. After crushing they transported the juice to the tanks using a very large cone shaped container. Their purpose was to avoid pumping the newly crushed grapes which could supposedly stress the fruit. The guys tasted a seriously good Cabernet Sauvignon here. 

Dinner was at the Blousson Bed and Breakfast in the Andean foothills.  They prepared a lamb roast that cooked 14 hours in an adobe oven.  It was wonderful.  The owner is a new vinter with 7 acres of  Malbec grapes and his first wine in 3 barrels, aging for another 2-3 months.  He explained all he had done so far and then let us tast his wine straight from the barrel.  It was very good!