My friend Ale Lahitte wrote the following about the tour Musu and the Vinoteca Mr Wines Group had taken with Matias Etchart
TASTINGS ,
PLACESIt's all about love and live
Ale Lahitte
11/29/2018
D hey say that traveling
the heart is strengthened,
Then walk new paths
makes you forget the above.
I agree in part with this song Litto Nebbia. I do not think to walk new paths make forget the previous, rather it is a continuation of you traveled before. Is to add experience and, like everything else, it depends on us what we do with that. What I am sure of is that, if the heart is strengthened traveling, traveling with friends strengthens the soul.
When traveling alone, everything is more introspective, you connect with yourself and you link more deeply you're living with what is happening to you. It happened when I went to
Tacuil , where I could lie on the grass and connect with silence. But traveling with others is different: arise anecdotes, jokes, talks that strengthen the links.
If you tore the trip with a group of people who share your same passion for wine, surely the end of the tour will be your friends.
That's the
#MrWinesTour : a group of people who share the same passion and joined by
La Cueva de Musu that from the previous palpitate the trip with meetings in their homes and taking leave on the return flight and cemented a friendship.
And the #MrWinesTour was rolling now by the endless Route 40 toward what would be one of the most impressive parts of the trip: Arca Yaco, the house of Amar y Vivir.
Yaco ark
Yaco Arca is a small winery located in hardreach the Quebrada de San Lucas . To get, you go out towards Cachi Cafayate and San Carlos Doblás reach westbound, seeking the foothills. After a long stretch of gravel reach a village of only about 20 adobe houses called San Lucas. Raisins village, you conductby the Wadi River and finally go up on a steep slope down to the cellar.
Matias EtchartIts owner is
Matias Etchart , a young winemaker who grew up playing in the vineyards of Cafayate winery, owned by his grandfather Arnaldo B. Etchart , and a few years ago he decided to return to its origins. He looked a little suitable for cultivation of the vine and in 2010 came across this unexplored paradise farm.
Seeing that land and test the water coming down from the mountain realized that this was the place to fulfill your dream. He recovered irrigation canals, built roads and planted two hectares in 2013 mainly malbec and some cabernet sauvignon. He built his house next to the vineyard in 2015 made the first wine in a tank of the house and in 2017 built the winery.
The view is breathtaking: the gaze runs through valleys and gorges, crosses over and over the hills and far away is lost in the ubiquitous Nevado de Cachi. The winery is located on a small plateau and further down, the family home and vineyard. A deep canyon guarded by huge cactuses reminds us how small we are. Again, silence returns and the same sense of immensity experienced in Tacuil.
Yaco Ark and the Quebrada de San Lucas
Amar vineyards
Matthias led us around the warehouse, a beautiful building that respects the colonial and vallista, adobe walls 70 cm thick and tile roofs and inner rod to which all materials used in the area.
There are a dozen French oak barrels "and American oak that came by mistake and well ... it was there we use" , tells Matthias. Some are traditional roast and other convection to find different expressions of wine. In addition to the barrels, concrete has two pools and two small stainless steel tanks.
Matthias uses two harvest times for the malbec with about 10 days apart and a month later harvest cabernet sauvignon. Manual collection is performed in baskets of 20 kilos. The grape enters the grinder and then gravity will pools, tanks or barrels depending on what line it is. To love and live fermentation and aging is in barrels and Imagine is in sink and tank.
poolsLive your dreams
Then we walked to the beautiful family house is located on the side of the ravine surrounded by two hectares of vineyards. There we waited some amazing empanadas, a rich asado (Cabeza included) and wines:
- Imagine the sweet sensation that leaves the wine Malbec 2018 : Matthias is a romantic and choose names for their wines that refer to boleros that accompanied him throughout his life. In this case, this Imagine is 100% malbec without barrel aging . It is intense, explosive, pure fruit, lots of character and identity.
- Amar y Vivir 2016 and 2017 : BLEND 85% malbec and cabernet sauvignon 15% aged for 15 months in oak . It is complex, elegant, with fruit as the main protagonist and the Valley Calchaquí own DNA. A great wine that represents the best of the new salteña oenology. 2016 was a little wilder than 2017 is more subtle.
- Amar y Vivir Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 : Bomba. First add as a varietal and is, in my opinion , the most outstanding of the entire line. It has everything you expect from a large salteño cabernet : pyrazines, great body, structure, lots of fruit and very elegant. Aging in barrels for 15 months he has well rounded but surely continue adding elegance and complexity with time in bottle. A wine to fall in love.
The wines and the winery backgroundBecause that is
The afternoon passed between laughter and stories. The group will hold, confidence and with it comes the jokes that make fun trip. Matias is one more: the visibility of their project have a lot to do with "cave" and Musu, who was one of the first to bet on their wines. Undoubtedly, Matias Etchart is a caver producer.I think despite all melancholy
so much pain and so much injury,
just about living ... and love.For some reason I think back to this song. He had met Yaco Ark few months before traveling to the #MrWinesTour and the feeling was the same: It cost me say goodbye to that magical place, Matthias and his people. It was much to learn and surely come back again to the house of Amar y Vivir .
An amazing place lost in the middle of a ravine surrounded by hills and built with love. Because that is: to live to love, to love and live.