Bousquet expands into Maipu

It’s been a pretty remarkable few years for Domaine Jean Bousuqet – from fairly humble beginnings in 1997 DJB have grown to be the number one Argentinian exporter of organic wines. Increasing demand for their wines worldwide have prompted the team to purchase a 72 hectare vineyard in Maipu, Mendoza which is planted with Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Maipu is a well regarded region for Malbec and work is already underway to acquire organic certification for the new vineyard.

 

Sampling: Alpamanta Estate

Alpamanta Malbec

 

Last year I was contacted by Andrej Razumovsky of Alpamanta, a brand new estate in Mendoza, Argentina. Now I get a lot of emails and phone calls looking for business, but what interested me in his estate was that they were practising biodynamic viticulture. There are quite a few organic vineyards in Argentina due to a positive combo of altitude/rainfall/vine health that often renders chemicals un-necessary. 

The estate was only founded in 2005, and the wines are being made by the world-renowned Alvaro Espinoza. There’s lots of info anyway on their beautifully produced website. I received samples (admittedly quite a while ago) so last week I was able to taste the Alpamanta Estate 2007 Malbec and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, and I’ve got to say that the wines were excellent. The Malbec was the winner for me,  just take a look at my glowing notes:

“…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.”

This is really good juice, so hopefully we’ll see it available in Ireland some time soon (*wink wink)