Our wines are born, made and evolve in the mountains; in desert valleys located at the heart of The Andes, with their austere weather, hilly topography, poor soil, and indomitable natural environment. Each and every one of our wines is influenced by the mountains. Their personality and character nourish our grapes, causing our wines to have aromas and flavors that express the Andean terroir.
The winery
Our winery is a fortress made of natural and sustainable rock, completely integrated into the environment. The stillness, use of noble materials, silence, great openness, and naturally-controlled temperature aim at recreating a continuity between the indoors and outdoors, between the winery and the mountains.
The Bórmida & Yanzón architecture study was inspired by the ancestral pirca construction system, used by the Huarpes, native people of those lands, who built by stacking stones of different sizes and shapes of the area, manually fitting them together. With this imprint, the winery anticipates the pre-Andes rocky slopes with its esplanades and gardens, with river stone, gravel and pellets, rustic grass and white grass floorings that are characteristic of the environment. The difference between the insides and the outsides is almost imperceptible; winery and mountain coexist in an integrated and perfect ecosystem.
The construction expresses its Andean nature eloquently with a design that alludes to the pre-Hispanic ceremonial centers. Its huge blind stone walls recreate the ancestral Huarpes pircas and provide the interiors with the benefits of its thermic inertia, which is ideal for wine. All this is combined with harmony, modernity and tradition; nature and technique.
Bodega Séptima, with its wide halls, bright rooms, dry squares, open spaces, and terrace in the heart of the mountain has been recognized with several awards for its architecture, known as one of the most elegant and eye-catching wineries in Argentina.
Bodega Séptima is located in the high Agrelo area, department of Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, surrounded by our Finca Emblema and its 150 hectares planted with vines. It has a covered surface of 5,500 m² and produces three million bottles of wine per year, which are sold both in Argentina and in international markets.
The Bórmida & Yanzón architecture study designed, one of the most beautiful wineries in Mendoza in this privileged point. In addition to the esthetic value, the pirca technique, based on the stacking of natural stones from the Mendoza River, allows the necessary thermic isolation of the winery to preserve stable winemaking temperatures naturally and sustainably. With its stone walls, noble materials and natural colors, the winery is harmonically integrated into the mountain environment.
Agrelo, in Luján de Cuyo, is a valley located between 800 and 1,050 meters of height with excellent vine growing conditions. Located on the high part of this locality, the Finca Emblema is the icon of Bodega Séptima. Its healthy and balanced adult vines, planted in a terroir with privileged characteristics, produce grapes of the highest enological quality.
After long zoning works, we discovered that there are certain varieties –such as Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc –that give finer expressions defined in the Valle de Uco. Therefore, while Agrelo provides the wine skeleton, structure, silkiness, pleasantness, roundness, and expressions of maturity, the Valle de Uco provides freshness, acidity, and tension to our wines. The Gualtallary area, in Tupungato, adds minerality and elegance while Los Chacayes, in Tunuyán, provide muscle and certain floral notes.
To us, discovering the diversity of terroirs and varieties in Argentina is the first step in the search for the highest quality.
Our Finca Emblema, located at the heart of Agrelo, has poor soils of alluvial source which provide excellent vinegrowing conditions. It has a widely heterogeneous composition, being more sandy in some regions and more loamy-sandy or rocky in others. Therefore, agronomists at Bodega Séptima use trial pits to study them and observe the behavior of the plants’ roots.
The trial pit shown in the picture is an excavation carried out in a highly emblematic plot of the vineyard, which has a loamy texture in the first 40 centimeters, without any rocks. The highest proportion of roots (both supportive and absorbing) can be found in this strip, where they spread and explore the soil. After the first 40 centimeters and up to 1.5 meters of depth, a very marked change in texture can be observed: a loamy-sandy layer with a large presence of calcium carbonate covering the round stones. This soil profile shows a very low water and nutrient retention capacity, which facilitates drainage and fosters the vineyards’ low vegetative expression, concentrating all the energy in its fruits.
We make fresh wines, with little intervention, respecting the characteristics of both the varieties and the terroir where grapes are born. Likewise, we ferment must in different containers to achieve various layers of flavors and aromas in each of our wines. In addition to the stainless steel tanks and barrels, we have recently acquired oak barrels with a storage capacity of 4500 liters, which provide more stable wines as regards color, with a greater fruity expression and presence of wood, and soft and drinkable tannins.
We make modern wines in which the terroir and the varietal identity can be perceived, using top-quality grapes and innovative vinification techniques.
A KEY CORNERSTONE
