After the dizzying heights of French wannabes Clos Apalta, we tootled down the road to Viu Manent, an Italian family winery now wowing the folks from every end of the scale. Here the marketing people have excelled. Despite the dull (and then rainy!!) day, we soldiered through the tour and tasting alone with our great guide Jose Miguel. Here some vines are 10 years old and tradition is important, but modern taste and research dictates what they will produce.
The tour includes a ride in the horse and carriage (driver Luis, with beige Pele and brown La Chocolate) through the vines, down to the cellars and back to the reception centre.
One of the highlights was a barrel tasting, where we got to taste the new ‘sturm’ wine from the stainless steel tank. Interesting. Here again, there is a lot of handpicking to preserve the quality of the grapes.
The restaurant here is beautiful, overlooking the vineyard, and offering a reasonable selection of food, not the Mendoza style 6 courses with 6 matching wines. We can handle this.
The outdoor/indoor resto overlooks the vines and we see various families and kids on horses riding through the lanes. Also cyclists come for a special tour through the vineyards. They have courses on tasting wine, cooking, you name it, the marketing people have captured it. They are into what people want, and determined to make it all happen.
Tasting was good as were the 5 wines, really good value too,, but we are finished buying here. The usual Sauv Blanc to start, Pinot Noir, Cab.Sauv Reserve and Malbec Grand Reserve, El Oliver Alta Syrah (single vineyard). All very drinkable now. If you bought after the tour a 25% discount. Smart marketing everywhere you look...
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