Address: Cobos 2601 - Perdriel
Phone: (0261) 488-1131
Email: winery(at)achaval-ferrer.com
Website: www.achaval-ferrer.com
Hours: Monday to Saturday (by appointment only)
Reservations Required: Yes
Brands: Altamira, Quimera
Recommended Wines: Quimera blend (Malbec/Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc/Merlot)

Description

Passionately committed to producing small quantities of fine red wine, this boutique winery scored 95+ points in The Wine Advocate with their 2007 Finca Altamira Malbec. Santiago Achával also leads the winemaking team at The Vines of Mendoza Private Vineyard Estates in the Uco Valley.

In the words of its founders, Achaval-Ferrer is and will always be a small Argentine winery that is passionately committed to producing small quantities of fine red wine. As a testament to their approach, their 2002 Finca Altamira Malbec scored 94 points in the 2004 Wine Spectator weekly.

The work at Achaval-Ferrer is built around producing what they refer to as two "ideas" of wine. The first "idea" is a testament to terroir. These are single-vineyard Malbec varietals, all three of them from very old, low-producing vines in very special places in the Mendoza region. The other "idea" they call the "pursuit of the ideal wine". It is a blended wine based on Bordeaux varietals grown in the Mendoza region. They have named this wine Quimera (in Spanish Quimera means an impossible ideal). Based on what we have seen from this winery to date, we doubt that perfect is impossible.

Despite the winery's international reputation, the bodega tour is friendly and informal; with a heavy emphasis on the low yield cultivation techniques used to produce grapes that require little intervention in the winery. The bodega lacks a formal tasting room - a clear indication of its priority to channel resources toward the continuing production of world-class wines.