Mendoza wine tourism has a new wine house, in the middle of a resort among vineyards, just 40 minutes from the city of Mendoza.
The entrepreneurship is called The arkwhere the Archangels and Demons rest Winery Without Rulesand is located in the Dragonback Estate wine complex, in High Agrelothe wine-growing town of Luján de Cuyo.
The person responsible for the new development is Andres Ridois, economist, plastic artist and wine designer. This man from Mendoza, who has been creating brands for 15 years, is the manager of the Colosso, Sottano, Sin Reglas wineries and the Sin Culpa Foundation, which promotes the recycling of wine bottles.
“I dedicate myself to create wines with magnetism, such as the brands Barabas, Pilatos, María Magdalena, Judas, Los Arcángeles and Demonios, among others, which arose from biblical inspiration.” defines the developer.
In 2018, when his oenological project had achieved an identity, Ridois decided to launch labels of wines made with fudres made in Croatia (a stainless steel container with optimal results for storing wines), and at a value of 100 dollars per bottle.
The manager explains why he is betting on this segment with high purchasing power: “People drink less, and The only profitable unit is the high-end, wines that are drunk at the destination”, dice.
The origin of demons
In 2019, Ridois fell ill with cancer, and the Covid pandemic hit. “In the midst of chemotherapy treatment, in 2020, I started releasing the Los Demonios wine line,” she recalls. And she describes: “You feel like a bit of a demon, with fears, darkness and a hidden side.”
In the midst of a personal transformation process for the owner of the winery, which included a change in diet and included meditation, the brand appeared Mil Demonios, a high-end wine which owes its name to the thousand days that the production process takes.
The head of oenology at Arca is Adrián Toledo, who managed, in a few months, sell all the wines they had created.
The wines from El Arca, Los Arcángeles and Demonios are designed for the national market but to the palate of Brazilians and Paraguayanswho are the winery’s main clients.
“In the United States, only 25% of what is consumed is imported. And in Brazil we have many consumers with purchasing power who buy these wines. My clients are 90% Brazilianand many cross the border to buy wines,” explains Ridois.
The wines are made with grapes from the Uco Valley, Agrelo and Perdriel. The new winery is built with a format that allows the production of dozens of high-end wines, each copy unique in its variety, because specializes in creating high-quality, high-end wines.
“Here, no wine or grape goes through pumps before fermentation. Aging in foudres, with slight contact with the wood due to its size, guarantees that the wood does not mask the characteristics of the winebut rather that it provides a component of sophistication and the time necessary for these great Argentine wines to stand out worldwide,” explains Ridois.
Opportunity in pandemic
The winery is dedicated to microvinification of selected batcheswith more than 130 stainless steel tanks in small containers and more than 600 thousand liters of fermentation in new wood foudres from the forests of Slavonia in Croatia, in collaboration with the Auric cooperage.
The opportunity arose with the pandemic: “When the restaurants closed, the greater offer of wine in the wineries “They couldn’t sell it and we took advantage of it to buy and launch new lines,” says Ridois. And he lists: “We were coming up with new labels: Lucifer, the Gypsy, the Viking, the Pirate, and many demons came out.”
The portfolio is completed with a sparkling wine, a vermouth and the Sin Culpa wines, which the entrepreneur developed with his daughter Santina. Together they created the Sin Culpa Foundation, which promotes reusing glass bottles and? For every case of wine he sells, he plants a tree. on the perimeter of the warehouse.
“I built a winery to do microvinification, to maintain the primary fruit, the aromas and flavors, and 100% in foudre,” says the owner.
Their wines are designed for Latin American clients visiting Argentina. Therefore, the future of entrepreneurship will be open this space to tourism and expand the offer of Mendozawhich has 205 wineries open to tourism, half with their own restaurants.
The inauguration of the winery, the first weekend in December, was with a great party at sunset. It was attended by more than 800 guestsbetween clients and suppliers, who enjoyed the Arca wines and the imposing landscape of the Andes Mountains.