VINEYARD

The esta­te con­sists of 240 hec­ta­res in Gual­ta­llary, Tupun­ga­to, Uco Valley (Men­do­za). The area has idy­llic wine-gro­­wing con­di­tions. The vine­yard is situa­ted in the Andes foothills at an alti­tu­de of 1200 meters/4000 feet abo­ve sea level. Due to its loca­tion, Domai­ne Bousquet’s vine­yards bene­fits from a cool cli­ma­te and cons­tant fresh air.

CLIMATE

With rain­fall ave­ra­ging a scant 20 cm per year, water deli­very to the vines can be well con­tro­lled. Irri­ga­tion is pro­ces­sed through a drop-by-drop sys­tem har­nes­sing the pure Andean moun­tain run-off. This spe­cial water crea­tes lower pH in the gra­pes, resul­ting in higher aci­dity and more color in the wine. The desert-like cli­ma­te has a huge 59° F day/night tem­pe­ra­tu­re differential.

SOIL

Thanks to the sandy soil, drai­na­ge tends to be exce­llent. Most of the soil sur­fa­ce has low con­cen­tra­tions of orga­nic mate­rial due to the ele­va­tion and cli­ma­te, which pro­du­ces very favo­ra­ble stress in each of our vines. Gra­pes deve­lop increa­sed levels of sugar and aci­dity.  Sandy soils help crea­te wines with ele­gant profiles.

VINES

The vine­yard was plan­ted on vir­gin land by Jean Bous­quet after its pur­cha­se in 1997. Once the vines reach their opti­mum ripe­ness, the gra­pes are pic­ked by hand and gathe­red in small trays. Orga­nic gra­pes have grea­ter con­cen­tra­tion thanks to lower yields. Thic­ker skins, deve­lo­ped by the gra­pes to pro­tect against heat and cold, give us grea­ter body, fla­vor, and aromatics.

All these great attributes give the grapes the possibility to attain optimum maturation without having to use pesticides or other chemical products, hence allowing Domaine Bousquet to produce high quality and healthy organically-grown grapes, which are then transformed into high-quality organic wines.

Winery

Domaine Bousquet´s philosophy is to focus on preserving the grapes high-quality characteristics, which is why gentle handling of the fruit is the guiding principle of our winery.

The team working in our cellar is detail oriented and strives to combine traditional with modern methods in order to produce high quality and polished style wines.

The winery can hand­le about 4,5 million liters of pre­mium wine, and the cellar inclu­des stain­less and cement vats, as well as French oak barrels.

Gra­pes arri­ve in small boxes to the recei­ving area, whe­re they are hand-sor­­ted befo­re going to the de-ste­m­­mer. After a gentle des­tem­ming, the fruit is then sent to tanks for mace­ra­tion and then fer­men­ta­tion for 30 days appro­xi­ma­tely. The fer­men­ta­tion is carried out with selec­ted yeast at a con­tro­lled tem­pe­ra­tu­re. During the wine­ma­king pro­cess, our wine­ma­king team con­trols and regu­larly super­vi­ses our wines to ensu­re excep­tio­nal quality.