Our Story
Our journey to this place is almost as storied as the legendary Cobos Road itself.
Guest rental villaIn 2006, we began our quest for both an ancient Malbec vineyard and an elegant residence in Mendoza wine country. Through countless trips, we investigated literally hundreds of properties and vineyards. Our search for a residence culminated in 2007 when we found the estate we call Villa Viamonte in the old town of Chacras de Coria, now a neighbourhood of Mendoza.
With a couple of friends from the upper echelons of the Canadian wine industry - Moray Tawse, of Ontario’s Tawse Family Winery, and the McConnell family, of Nova Scotia’s Benjamin Bridge Vineyards - we invested in this property, renovated and refurbished it that year, and now offer it as a guest rental villa when we are not in residence.
The search continued for the perfect vineyard. Right from the outset, we had secured the expert ongoing consultation of Roberto de la Mota and two other specialized Mendoza viticulturists, and, under their guidance, we became ever more versed in the soils, aspects, meso-climates, topography and potential of the finest ‘micro-terroirs’ of Mendoza’s many and varied high altitude vineyards. Our research involved closer examination of well over 200 vineyards, and finally, in 2008, we found and purchased an ancient vineyard on the legendary Cobos Road.
Our next steps would be to assemble the permanent team that would carefully bring the vineyard to the meticulous level of viticultural tending that is required for the production of the world’s finest wines. With much to be done to bring the grapes up to our demanding quality standards, we elected to sell the 2008 harvest, and sections of the 2009, to another winery, where they ended up as a major component in their top wine - at $120/bottle. And so, the first vintage of our own wine was a limited release from our finest vines in 2009. We call the wine Versado.
Versado: What's in a name?
We have chosen a word to honour the homeland of our vineyard. The word translates to ‘well-versed’ (expert or accomplished) and it has the same poetic echo (relating to ‘verse’) that it does in English.
When we purchased our ancient Malbec vineyard, it had just gone through two consecutive years of bad hail damage, and very poor viticultural management: the vines were looking wild, hurt and not well maintained. We knew that a lot of caring vineyard work would be needed to bring the noble old vines back to their full qualitative potential, and a detailed work plan was formulated and commenced.
Only ten months along, though, in the late summer of the subsequent vintage, we were stunned to see the spectacular recovery. Strolling philosophically through the rows, an elderly Argentine member of our vineyard team commented that the vines were ‘versado,’ that they had produced great wines for nearly a century and, being asked to do so again, they knew exactly what to do - they were well-versed in this matter.
We were moved by the sentiment; and we loved the lyrical sound of the word, and it stayed with us. With time, we began to view the wine we would make as an opportunity to bring our own ‘expertise’ and passion to the conversation; to express ourselves by allowing the vines to express themselves -- the poetic voice of this vineyard, this very special terroir.