Think Argentina and one thinks primarily of Mendoza and Malbec, perhaps Salta and Patagonia, Torrontés and fresh whites if feeling adventurous. However, one of the country’s newest GI’s, which was approved in 2022, is on the opposite side of the country from Mendoza, around 50km from the Atlantic in the Province of Buenos Aires, more widely associated with the flat Pampas lands and agriculture than viticulture.
Puerta del Abra was the first winery established in Balcarce, between Tandil in the interior and the coastal city of Mar del Plata, around 450km south of Buenos Aires. It started as a passion project by Jorge Pérez Companc, a businessman who loved wine and who intended it to be primarily for family and friends. However, he brought consultants Lydia and Claude Bourguignon (formerly advisors at Romanée-Conti, Comtes Lafon, and Leflaive), on board to establish the vineyard in 2013 and worked with Argentinian experts to better understand the terroir.
The 12-hectare plot of limestone and clay soils sits in the foothills of the ancient Tandilia mountain range, an area of “exceptional geological interest” Jorges’s son Sebastian told db, with some presence of granite. It is, he says, an ongoing development, to understand the limestone’s composition and how it varies across the plots, as well as how the vines react there.
With no windbreak between the foothills and the Atlantic, the area suffers from heavy rainfall (800-100mm per year) and strong winds (the first and last rows are meshed for protection). This led them to plant varieties that are less common in Argentina, such as Albariño, Riesling and Chardonnay for whites, and Tannat, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc for the reds, along with a little bit of Bonarda and Merlot for the reds.
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