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interview

Interview: Daniel Pi

by AmandaB September 17, 2018

Never more comfortable than when breaking the winemaking mould, the Peñaflor veteran is a central figure in the story of Argentina’s wine industry, as Amanda Barnes reveals in this interview with Daniel Pi…

Published in Decanter magazine, October 2018

Overseeing the production of more than 200 million litres of wine each year, Daniel Pi doesn’t have time for much else. ‘I’m lucky I love what I do!’ he says sincerely, and you get the impression that he really does love his job. Pi may be softly spoken but, as director of winemaking for Grupo Peñaflor, he is at the helm of one of the biggest wine producers in the world and has been instrumental in building its success. His own success is down to decades of hard graft and determination – but Pi also has an intrepid spirit that’s taken him beyond the ordinary.

Born into a middle-class family, Pi was the first to attend university, choosing to study architecture. Disillusioned with the creative limits that restrain architects in Mendoza – a region known for its earthquakes – he soon switched to winemaking. Graduating five years later, Pi was ready to start making wine – but the industry wasn’t quite ready for him.‘I finished my degree and was immediately unemployed,’ he recalls sardonically. ‘There was an overproduction crisis. White wines were fashionable and everyone was overcropping, prices were low and the quality wasn’t good. Let’s say it was “complicated”…’

Read the full article and interview with Daniel Pi on Decanter.com

You can view a PDF version here: Interview Daniel Pi.

Daniel Pi winemaker interview, Decanter magazine

Daniel Pi winemaker interview

Interview with Robert Kamen, Kamen Estate

by AB February 10, 2015

Robert Mark Kamen avoids a house palate by shunning his own wines in favor of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Interview for Wine-Searcher

You grew up in the city projects in the Bronx. How did you end up as a California winemaker?

I sold my first screenplay to Warner for $135,000 in 1979. I called my friend to celebrate and came down to Sonoma to meet him. We bought some wine, rolled some joints and came up here [to the vineyard]. There was no road or anything – we hiked for an hour and a half. I was an urban rat, I moaned the whole way until I got up here and saw that view. I sat here and said I could sit here forever, and he said: “You can, it’s for sale.”

The property’s stunning, but why vineyards?

I wanted to find the guy who grew the pot we smoked that day – it was the best in California – and so I found him, hiked up here with him, and he told me that his dream was to grow organic wine on hillsides. Nobody planted organic in 1979, especially in the mountains. In the last 30 years he [Phil Coturri] has become one of the best viticulturists in the world. He single-handedly brought organic viticulture to the mountains.

Your vineyards are biodynamic, why?

I was a child of the ’60s – lots of acid and flowers in my hair. I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t say using chemicals doesn’t go into the wine, or into [San Francisco] bay! I’m a firm believer in organic. Also my vegetables taste better. There’s great satisfaction in knowing that there’s no shit in what I eat.

Do you remember your first real taste of wine?

I spent a year in Afghanistan in 1971 with nomads doing research, and I wrote a novel, which got bought as a screenplay. I came home from Afghanistan, had some money and went to a wine store in New York. This man had changed his cigarette and food rations in World War II for Bordeaux wine and opened a wine shop [no longer in existence]. I gave him $1000 dollars and asked him to give me wine for a year. He gave me a case and told me to come back and tell him about it.

And what did you think?

At first I thought I was wasting my money – [it] was bitter and sour! I didn’t know what the fuss was about. Six months later I started appreciating what I was tasting; after a year I was hooked.

Is wine worth the fuss now?

It is now that I spent all that money in a vineyard! I’m enamored of wine … It’s still the thing that I look forward to at the end of the day. My cellar [more than 5000 bottles] is just for consumption.

What do you drink when you are not drinking your own Kamen Estate wines?

I don’t drink my own wines!

Why not?

…

Read the full interview on Wine-Searcher.com

The silver lining to Chile’s 2014 harvest

by AB June 27, 2014

Written for Wines of Chile

While the year certainly started on a hard note for Chile with an unexpected and ferocious frost across many of the wine regions, nine months later the wine that has made its way into the wineries is looking promising for a high quality vintage.

The difficult start to the vintage was because of a widespread couple days of frost in mid-September which reduced production by between 10 and 70% (depending on variety, vineyard and winery). It can be said that every cloud has a silver lining though, as – according to many winemakers – these low yielding vines produced more concentrated grapes that benefited from a steady ripening season.

“This year has been very good in terms of quality, as some of the varieties already had a reduction in yields because of the spring frosts,” Julio Bastias, winemaker at Matetic in San Antonio and Casablanca said. “Because of this we’ve had very good concentration and complexity in the wines.”

Most of Chile was favoured with good climatic conditions for a long and dry ripening season. “Although volumes are lower than historically, I think that because we are facing a smaller crop and enjoying outstanding climate, we will have an excellent quality in our 2014 wines,” said owner and winemaker Aurelio Montes from Montes winery with vineyards all across the country.

While the lack of rain has been good news for ripening, some producers – especially in the north – have their fingers crossed this winter for a good snowfall in the Andes so that water resources are replenished for next year. “Climate conditions here in Elqui were very nice as usual,” commented Giorgio Flessati, Head Winemaker at Viña Mayu. “The production is a bit lower than 2013 vintage but we didn’t suffer frost effects, only smaller bunches. The only big worry that we have is the water: we had just two days with a bit of rain in the last 18 months.”

Interview with Alberto Antonini

by AB November 23, 2013

An interview with flying winemaker and international consultant, Alberto Antonini. Interviewed for Casa de Uco.

Why is the Uco Valley such an exciting wine region?

The location is by far the best valley in Mendoza. It’s where you get some very interesting calcareous spots and well drained soils, with warm days to ripen the fruit and cold nights to retain acidity – it’s the best for the freshness of the fruit. It’s very exciting now I understand the valley. Working with Pedro Parra (a terroir specialist) I understand why I like the characteristics there.

Do you remember making your own first wine?

My father was a teacher but I grew up on a farm, so I was making wine for fun as a hobby and had a passion for wine. The first wine I made was there.

The feeling? I was very happy. Since I was a child they were asking me what I wanted to be and I said I wanted to be a peasant and work on the land! Since I was 5 or 6 I said I wanted to be a redneck… If I wasn’t a winemaker I would like to grow apples.

I also have a lot of passion for music too but I don’t have talent to make a living from that!

I remember the first smell of the wines I tried, it was fascinating for a child. We made it in a very artisanal way. It was really a long time ago… it was 50 years ago…

How important is personal style in winemaking?

I don’t think it is… depending where the wines are from. If it’s a place that is very special you really do very little. I don’t want to affect the expression of the place. When people say less is more, I believe it is true.

To get to the point of doing less, you have to have the experience and confidence. I think it’s now I’m trying to let the grapes express their best. I don’t like it when people talk about a style of a winemaker, that’s when the wine has gone. The job is to do as little as possible.

Interview with Laura Catena

by AB August 2, 2012

Laura Catena is an emergency room doctor in San Francisco. She is also a fourth-generation winemaker from a family credited with revolutionizing Argentinian wine – Bodega Catena Zapata’s flagship label, Nicolás Catena Zapata, was the first wine from Argentina to score a Robert Parker 98+.

How did you first fall in love with wine?

When my father was starting this whole revolution with Argentine wine in the ’80s and I was going to school in the United States [Harvard and Stanford]. My father used to visit me and one of our traditions was to go to really nice restaurants. His objective was to make Argentine wines that could stand with the rest of the world, so we had to try the best wines on the list. I became a wine snob rather quickly. That’s really how I started: sitting and having these incredible conversations with my father over wine.

Is great wine made in the vineyard or the winery?

Definitely in the vineyard. There’s no way you can make a great wine without a great vineyard. Impossible. However, you can ruin a great vineyard by making a bad wine. I think both are important, but without the great vineyard, there isn’t a great wine.