SuperUco

The Free Bacchus Story

Juan Pablo Michelini became chief winemaker at Doña Paula in 2004, and three years later he and his brothers Matías and Gerardo started Zorzal, in Tupungato. In 2010 he began work on what he calls the most significant project of his life. SuperUco was founded the next year, owned by all four Michelini brothers, Gerardo, Matías, Gabriel and Juan Pablo, with their friend Daniel Sammartino.

Malbec is Argentina's grape, and Mendoza makes most of it. The Uco Valley is the high part of Mendoza, and Los Chacayes, in Tunuyán, has its vineyards between 1,000 and 1,350 metres. Up there the gap between a hot afternoon and a cold night runs to 22 or 25 degrees, and rain averages about 300 millimetres a year. The winery says the swing gives the grapes thicker skins and sharper acidity.

Their own farm there is two hectares, 1.3 of them planted. The vines go round in concentric circles, which the family says gives them sun from every side, and the winery in the middle is an octagon. Demeter certifies the farm as a biodynamic grower. That certificate covers the Los Chacayes farm only: SuperUco also buys grapes from vineyards in Gualtallary, Paraje Altamira and San Pablo for other wines, and none of those is on any organic or biodynamic register Free Bacchus could find.

SuperUco Chacayes is a wine from the certified farm itself. It is half Malbec, a quarter Cabernet Franc, and the rest Merlot and Petit Verdot, from 0.7 hectares. It ferments on its own yeasts in French oak, ages in used barrels and is bottled unfiltered, and the winery says it corrects no acidity and adds no sulphites. There are about 1,500 bottles a year.