A HIGH COUNTRY WINE WITH LOW COUNTRY BLOOD, FROM DOMAINE BOUSQUET
NATURALLY DRIVEN
Get to know a fourth-generation family survived by initial challenges that began with the mover and shaker Patriarch, Jean Bousquet. His vision to continue producing great wine wasn’t from his native roots of Carcassonne, France, but in Mendoza, Argentina! Everyone at home thought he was FOU, LOCO, CRAZY, but demonstrated his prowess otherwise. He decided to sell everything he owned in France, including his family’s winery and vineyards near Carcassonne and bought land deep in the Gualtallary Mountains of Argentina in 1997. He eagerly planted grapes and then produced his first vintage in 2005. With that said, I think he wasn’t really French or crazy for that matter, but a true Latino in his past life with a big set of, what we Latines like to say, CAJONES (BALLS)! Latinos are locos that way.
WHY THE GAUCHO COUNTRY?
In the 1990s, Argentina’s confidence in its wine industry surged foreign investments into the 20th century. Why not, they had land to spare, excellent climatic conditions, soils, and a generous government. With all the country’s traits, production then focused on quantity, producing big ripe juicy wines for mass appeal. It generated an attractive revenue in the export market for the country as well as investors. However, on an honest calculation, they quickly lost their seductiveness. Argentina soon became an insignificant portion of the global business of what it could be today.
Jean Bousquet was just one of the many drawn by the potential for growth and acceptance of Argentinean wines in the global market. Despite the country’s boom-or-bust economy, it’s principally the result of investments made and vineyards rapidly planted just in the past 20 years. Presently, Argentina is the world’s fifth-largest wine producer after France, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. There are more than 900 wineries,17,000+ producers, 20+million cases exported that result in $800+ million in revenue. That’s still very current telling. Therefore, when Bousquet produced his first vintage in 2005, he restructured his humble winery into a commercial brand that now has a market share in over 30+ countries. That’s not a vision, that’s materialization!
To further clarify, why Argentina is so exciting to investors like Jean Bousquet, is that out of the four major wine-producing countries in the world, Argentina is not commercially producer branded, it’s grape branded. This means Argentina has never been concerned with creating dominant wine companies such as France’s Boisset, Italy’s Antinori, Spain’s Freixenet, or U.S.’s (dare I say the largest in the world), E.J. Gallo. However, Argentina has none of that, instead, they are grape branded by Malbec! Importantly, today Argentina is turning a new leaf, like the other country’s winemaking giant’s because the worldwide wine market is just beginning to get competitively heated. Let the races begin!
LOCATION< LOCATION< LOCATION….
That’s the saying American’s use if you are thinking of purchasing prime real estate. Thus the story was inspired while on holiday to Argentina’s Mendoza region in the 1990s. Bousquet (pronounced boo-SKAY) found 1,000 acres of isolated vineyards on high arid land in the Tupungato district of the Uco Valley. This area is 180 degrees from his low country roots of Carcassonne, France. Carcassonne is the IGP experimental classification that surrounds the famous walled city of Carcassonne in southern France’s Languedoc region. The Medieval city is one of France’s most visited tourist spots and is the center of an immense wine-producing area.
On the side of the world’s southern hemisphere lies this semi-desert with nothing planted, not even water above ground, no electricity, and just one dirt road for access. Bousquet was determined to make his claim in Tupungato, the northernmost sub wine region of the Uco Valley. It is one of the more important subregions within the whole universal economic wine power region Mendoza, of Argentina. Because of the 4,000 feet above sea elevations influenced by the Gualtallary Mountains, there are extraordinary: full-bodied red wines made from Malbec and crunchy ageable whites like Torrontes, lively bubbles from Chardonnay, and of course wild crispy pinks from Pinot Noir, like this wine for review, Gaia Rose.
ANDES, THE TRUE NATURAL REASON FOR JEAN BOUSQUET
I can’t conclude this article without acknowledging the beating heart of South American burgeoning wine commerce. No one can argue the real reason why the South American wine industry exists is the natural domination of the ANDES MOUNTAINS! The Andes Mountains play a crucial sector in their national economies. It supplies water for agricultural AND viticultural areas, mineral resources, hydroelectricity for domestic use, along with some of the most existential business centers in South America. Domaine Bousquet has successfully benefited from this natural resource, and possibly why he chose a location that most would believe the impossible. The fiesty Pinot Noir grape shines around Tupungato in the hands of Bousquet. Pinot Noir has been described as a grape with an iron fist in a velvet glove, but I like to describe PINOT NOIR IS A GRAPE WITH MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES BUT ONE SOUL!
JEAN BOUSQUET GAIA ROSE 2020 TUPUNGATO, UCO VALLEY, ARGENTINA
There’s no denying this is a very attractive label. It depicts the Greek Goddess of Earth, GAEA (GAIA). Domaine Bousquet wanted to exemplify the purity of the area that allowed this rose to be produced from 100% organically grown Pinot Noir. Without, pouring the wine into a glass, from the bottle the color is visually appealing, with hard candy pink. The nose on impact is super floral, with ripe mountain strawberries, juicy field watermelon, perfumed with white flowers, and crushed rocks. On the palate, it’s surprisingly dry, with plenty of residual sugar, balanced with zesty acid with red ripe berries, blood oranges, luscious on the mid-palate with a stony finish falling short on complexity depth and length.
It’s not a bad wine, it’s good and effortless. I’m somewhat disappointed with Gaia Rose, based on the face of Argentina’s image working tirelessly to produce less wine by the numbers and more wines with spirit. Yet I understand, this producer’s intention is to reach a mob of people and you will definitely get plenty of pleasure from this rose. If you are looking for a rose outside of France with a different twist, then Jean Bousquet is your Domaine.
Do you think the face of Argentine Wines is changing or stagnant?????
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