VISIT FROM DENMARK

My importer from Denmark Christian Philipson came to visit our vineyard last week. Check out some of the pics he just sent me

ALPAMANTA WINES in BUENOS AIRES

From December there are 2 new venues in Buenos Aires offering our wines. Faena Hotel- Alpamanta Reserva Malbec 2007 and Parrilla Don Julio- Alpamanta Estate Malbec 2008

2009 FINAL BLENDS READY

On Thursday we made the final blends for our 2009 red wines- Alpamanta Reserva Malbec 2009, Alpamanta Estate Malbec 2009, Alpamanta Natal Malbec 2009 and Alpamanta Natal Cabernet Sauvignon 2009. Both Natal wines (without oak) will be bottled in february 2010, while the Estate in march/april before the 2010 harvest. We made an intense wine tasting for all wines with Alvaro & the team.

ALPAMANTA IN UK & US

Great news - we will soon enter two new markets, so we are now exporting to 6 countries !

VINANDINO 2009- 3 MEDALS

Our Alpamanta wines scored excellent results in the most important South American blind tasting OIV event. From 850 competing wines from 15 countries and an international jury composed by 35 experts Alpamanta won 1 Gold (Malbec Estate 2007) and 2 Silver (Malbec Estate 2008 & Mabec Reserva 2007) medals.

On november 24 th there will be an Awards wining event in Buenos Aires.

ANOTHER BIODYNAMIC WORKSHOP

Last week we finalized our biofertilizer and stored the new preparations 500, 501 & 504. Also we are now fighting the ants with some product from Brazil, dry oranges and a home made grilled ant recipee from the vineyard

CHARDONNAY 2009 READY

Our Alpamanta Natal Chardonnay 2009 is finally ready- we will bottle this wine next week and calculate to get a total of 13.000 bottles

WINES IN GERMANY

Alpamanta Estate Malbec & Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 arrived in Aachen today and our importer Nagel & Hoffbaur will be introducing both wines throughout Germany over the next few weeks

WINES TO CANADA

First wines in the Americas !
This week we will make our first shipment to British Columbia and Alberta in Western Canada. Let´s see how the Alpamanta Estate Malbec 2007 sells in this part of the world

SILVER MEDAL AT MUNDUSVINI

Alpamanta Estate Malbec 2007 was awarded among 6000 participating wines with the Silver Medal at Mundusvini 2009- the most important German wine competition. The Alpamanta Estate 2007 wines will be arriving to Germany this week and be launched on the German market next month.

APPLICATION OF BIODYNAMIC COMPONENTS ON VINEYARD

We prepared and applied both Fladen and Component 500 on the entire vines, thanks to the help of our Austrian trainee Stefan and our vineyard team.

BIODYNAMIC PASTE FOR TREES

To heal our olive and fruit trees from the rabbit bites and hail damages our team prepared a special recipe, called "Biodynamische Paste", which was brushed on all our

vineyard

BIODYNAMIC SEEDING

On a bitter cold winter day we started with our new little biodynamic park- Kamille, Brennessel, Lowenzahn, Baldrian seeds, all essential plants for our applications

BEST VALUES FROM ARGENTINA- PARKER 87 POINTS

Our first vintage wine Alpamanta Estate Malbec 2007 was selected together with 253 other wines as best values from Argentina (under $25 retail price) in the Wine Advocate.

These are the tasting notes from Jay Miller, who tasted the wine back in february 09:

"The 2007 Estate Malbec was produced from organically grown grapes. For the past year, the estate has been farming biodynamically. The wine was fermented with native yeasts and raised in 60% new French oak and 40% in tank.
Purple in color, the nose reveal earth notes, spice box, and black cherry. On the palate the wine is medium-bodied with some elegance and tasty flavors but could use more depth and concentration. Drink it over the next 6 years. "

AUSTRALIA- SECOND ORDER

This week we are shipping more Malbec Estate 2007 wines to our customer in Perth. This is the second order within 6 months !!

WINE LABELED & SHIPPED TO EUROPE

This week we shipped 5 pallets to Denmark and Germany, where we will start selling in september. During 2 days we were labeling and packing our wines and prepared also the cases for our upcoming shipment to Australia and Canada.

NEW PARTNER IN DENMARK

In july we signed a one year marketing agreement with the Danish importer Philipsonwine, which will represent us in Denmark. Our wines, including the Malbec Reserva 2007 will be shipped in the next few weeks and introduced in september

LARSSON TASTING- RESULTS

Sommelier World Champion 2007 Andreas Larsson published his Argentinean wine tasting results at VINEXPO in Bordeaux last june. Out of almost 200 wines tasted blind, Alpamanta Reserva Malbec 2007 was awarded the best Premium Malbec of the 2007 vintage and one of the 12 best overall.
Also the Estate Malbec 2007 got excellent results and was rated as one of the best Malbecs in its category:

2007 - ALPAMANTA RESERVA MALBEC -MENDOZA
Wild dark berries, some hints of truffle and smoke, very structured and
concentrated palate, dark fruit, silky tannins and layers of complex flavours, very long finish,
really good potential, should age very well.


2007 - ALPAMANTA ESTATE MALBEC- LUJAN DE CUYO
Pure and fruity nose, some floral hints and freshly crushed berries, well balanced
with a good freshness and crunchy dark fruit, fairly long.


For more details on all tasting results, please check out http://www.winesofargentina.org/tasted-larsson/WINE%20GUIDE%20argentina.pdf

FIRST DEMETER INSPECTION

On june 3rd we got our first biodynamic inspection with the aim to certify our vineyard DEMETER. If all goes according to plan we will become an officially recognised biodynamic vineyard in 2010.

ALPAMANTA MALBEC RESERVA 2007 READY

We have introduced our premium product of the 2007 harvest to the market. Only 3500 bottles of this 18 months new French oak stored Malbec are available, from which 800 bottles have already been sold. This wine has won the Bronce medal at this year's Argentinean Wine Awards event and a Gold Mnedal at the OIV competition "Malbec al Mundo"

PARTNERSHIP WITH NAGL & HOFFBAUR

We are proud to announce that we have signed a 3 years agreement to market the Alpamanta Estate and Reserva product line on an exclusive basis in Germany. From september onwards our wines will be available for the German wine lovers

2009 WINES

After meeting with our enologist team (Alvaro Espinoza) we are heading for the following wines

Alpamanta Estate Malbec - 1500 cases
Alpamanta Reserva Malbec- 500 cases
Alpamanta Estate Cabernet- 400 cases

We will also add a new product line without oak, which we will start selling in Q3 2009 with the following amounts and varietals at end customer price of US$ 9/bottle

Chardonnay- 1000 cases
Malbec- 1500 cases
Cabernet- 1000 cases

Please stay tuned for branding of this new wines

ALPAMANTA IN THE DANISH PRESS

Last weekend (june 7th) there was a long article on our wines in the Weekend edition of Berlinske Tidende magazine, Danish largest newspaper- if you do read Danish please look at the section of the article below:

VINEN FRA ANDES- fra Soren Frank

"Mens jeg venter på flyet mod vest senere på aftenen, harjeg turens
første møde med en vinproducent inde i Buenos Aires; Andrej Razumovsky,
som er født i Danmark af en østrigsk far med ukrainske aner
og dansk mor, men stadig taler flydende dansk, selv om han har tilbragt
det meste af sin opvækst i Østrig.
Andrej er egentlig en civilist fra lT-software-branchen, som kom til
Argentina i 2000 og blev lokalt gift, så da han for nogle år siden forlod sit
IT-job, besluttede han sammen med to venner at investere i den argentinske
vinbranche. Sammen købte og beplantede de 35 hektar for fire
år siden i Mendoza, i det sydlige Lujan de Cuyo. De tre partnere var fra
starten fast besluttet på at lave økologisk vin, så da denne dyrkningsform
trods gunstigt klima ikke ligefrem er udbredt i Argentina, trak
man den chilenske ønolog Alvaro Espinoza ind som konsulent. Spinoza
er kendt som vinmageren bag kooperativet Vifledos Organicos Emiliana
(hvis vine vi flere gange med held har anmeldt i Berlingskes lørdagsmagasin/
FRl), som er en af Sydamerikas lå helt biodynamiske producenter
og i øvrigt en af de største af slagsen overhovedet.
Første årgang for Alpamanta (som ifølge Razumovsky betyder terroir
på den originale indianske dialekt) er2007, som ikke overraskende med
så unge vinstokke generelt er til den lette side - de prøver, jeg smager
på 08, har allerede en del mere kød på kroppen. I 2009 regner Razumovsky
med at kunne lave 35.000 flasker, som med tiden kan vokse
til 100.000 - som dog stadig er en meget lille produktion i Argentina.
I dag er Alpamanta ved at blive lagt om til biodynamisk brug, hvilket
er medvirkende til, at Razumovsky helt overvejende satser på
eksport. "Det argentinske marked forstår ikke bio", som han
udtrykker det. "

TASTING NOTE FROM IRELAND

Ronan Farell, one of the great biodynamic wine experts in Ireland published his tasting notes on both Alpamanta Estate wines on the Web.

Here is what he had to say for the Malbec Estate 2007

“…soft and luscious mouthfeel; deep plummy flavours are balanced by a refreshing natural acidity, and ripe fruit tannins are supported with judicious oaking which weighs in on a long finish that’s packed full of ripe blackberry and mulberry flavours. Excellent balance throughout, and very enjoyable.”

For more please check out his full article on http://straffanwines.wordpress.com/tag/biodynamic/

ALPAMANTA IN BUENOS AIRES

Our wines are now available in Astrid y Gaston, one of the best new restaurants in Buenos Aires, specialised in Peruvian haute cuisine.

WINE TASTING IN GERMANY

On the first may weekend our wines were presented in the annual Winetasting event "Wein im Schloss" in Koblenz. Alpamanta was invited together with 7 other wineries of Argentina to represent the "guest country Argentina". Many local politicians and key opinion leaders of the German wine industry took part in this important event. We also had a chance to visit and taste some extraordinary Riesling wine producers in Ahr, Mittelrhein and Mosel, such as Weingart and Lehner

FIRST SALE AUSTRALIA

On may 15th our first sold wines were shipped to Australia- 180 bottles of Malbec Estate 2007. This wine got very good market response from our local distributor's clients. One wine sommelier described this wine as "an iron fist in a velvet glove". Let´s hope that we will get a similar good feedback from all Australian wine lovers and a good start in Down Under.

BIODYNAMIC WORKSHOP

In between the harvest our consultant Rene came over on april 14th to proceed in our biodynamic applications. Anastasia and Tatjana were highly active in the individual work tasks

HARVEST 2009- RED GRAPES

On march 30th we started harvesting the red grapes- Merlot was the first vine- and we continued on Friday, april 3rd collecting the Syrah.

In the Easter week we continued with the Syrah on Monday and Malbec on Wednesday april 8th.

After Easter we completed our harvest collecting Malbec on april 16th & 20 and Cabernet Sauvignon on april 17th th.

All family members, including my sister Tatjana and my Dad were active in harvesting, tasting and collecting the grapes.

WHITE GRAPES HARVEST

On Thursday and Friday last week we harvested for the first time ever all our Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Even though we had some differences in the quality and maduration of the grapes we could process 6000 liters of each varietal. For the white wines we have rented some space in another winery,which has good cooling system for fermentation and maceration.

BRONCE MEDAL

Our Alpamanta Reserva 2007 won the Bronce Medal at the Argentina Wine Awards last week in the Malbec US$ 20-50 category. More than 500 samples were tasted by experts from Argentina, Canada, USA, Brasil and UK.

LAUNCH OF NEW WEBSITE

As of march 1 st we launched our new Website www.alpamanta.com. This site is targeted to the industry experts and contains plenty of information on the wines, winemaking methods used and vineyard characteristics. Also there will be a seperate section on wine tasting notes from Experts and press coverage on awards and articles in Media and TV. There will also be a direct link to this Blog to be updated on all events around our project.

UPCOMING HARVEST 2009

End of this week we will start harvesting the white grapes (Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay), respecting the biodynamic calendar.

2008 WINES- FINAL BLENDS

On february 19th we defined the final cuts for our 2008 product line.

Malbec Estate - 4600 liters: 95 % Malbec and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon- 100 % oak

Cabernet Sauvignon Estate - 5250 liters: 92% Cabernet, 8 % Malbec- 34% oak

Malbec Reserva- 5250 liters: 92.5% Malbec and 7.5% Cabernet- 100 % oak

On march 10th we will bottle both Alpamanta Estate varieties, which will make the ageing process 9 months ,the same as in 2007.

ALPAMANTA RESERVA 2007 BOTTLEING

On january 26th we bottled 3450 bottles of our top premium 2007 wine, which has been ageing 18 months in new French oak. This wine will now rest some 6 months in bottle and introduced to the market in Q3 2009. We will present this wine to the annual Argentina Wine Awards to be held end february in Mendoza to see if we can repeat the success of november 2008, where we obtained the Gold Medal at "Mabec al Mundo"

AUSTRIAN TV

On january 25 th the Austrian TV visited our vineyard. During 2 days Esther-Marie and her cameraman filmed several tasks and spots of our vines and personell.

Last Monday the 3 minute story was broadcasted in the afternoon's news program "Heute in Oesterreich". Please check out the fifth story in the news block for all details http://ondemand.orf.at/news/player.php?id=hioe&day=2009-02-02

FIRST SHIPMENT TO AUSTRALIA

Today our first cases were sent to Australia, where several wine tasting events will take place with most of the clients of our distributor Jed Wines. We will soon learn how our wines will impact in Down Under

89 points from Stephen Tanzer

On january 15th the US wine journalist Steve Tanzer published his annual review of wines from Argentina. 600 wines were tasted and we got an excellent result for our Malbec.

These are the exact words of Tanzer`s tasting notes, which can be read in his bimonthly Wine edition (ST International Wine Cellar):

2007 Alpamanta Estate Malbec Mendoza
Good deep ruby. Musky, wild aromas of black raspberry, truffle and game, plus hints of white fruits and marzipan; I would have picked this blind as a syrah. Pliant but firm on the palate, with a juicy quality and good spicy lift to the sweet fruit flavors. Sexy, savory wine with no jammy sweetness.

Also recommended: 2007 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza (86).