About this winery

Located in the Rio Negro Valley in northern Patagonia, Bodega Chacra is nestled between the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 1000 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. Founded by Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, descendant of the renowned Italian family, Chacra arose from his passion for fine wines and exploration of promising terroirs in Argentina. Since the 2000s, Chacra has focused on crafting exceptional Pinot Noir, benefiting from the dry climate and limestone-rich soils that...

See the BODEGA CHACRA detail page for more information on this brand

Product notes

The winter of 2007/08 arrived very late, it appeared in mid June instead of at the end of May. It was then cold and very dry, with not one drop of rain, and quite short. Spring was warm, without wind and this favored a good early flowering. Still no rain but we were plagued with serious frosts. The earlier ones were in October, 3 of them quite strong and then the “coup de grace” arrived very late in November, the first the 11th and the second the 14th. The temperatures dropped at 5 below zero. This left the Valley quite badly damaged. Between the province of Neuquen and ours, Rio-Negro, the damage was estimated at 50%. Luckily our old vines were not hit.

Summer began in January with strong winds, hot days and cold nights. The Patagonian winds tend to dry up a lot but at the same time they bring us cold nights. These conditions fostered the thickening of the skins of our berries, which translated into big polyphenols or tannins and very ripe. One can characterize the year as very hot and dry but with good fruit and acidity because of the thermal amplitude.

We began to harvest the Chacra “Treinta y Dos” on the 19th of March 2008. The grapes were in optimal condition and with very low natural yields (20 Hl / Hectare). We picked early morning and brought them to the winery where we kept them in a cool room where a group of local ladies de-stem them all by hand.

Production notes

The grapes were put into small cement tanks that are round in order to maximize the skin contact. Grapes were then left to macerate cold (as the cement conserves the temperatures naturally) for a period of 5 days. We proceeded with “plunging” of the grapes, the old fashioned way, once or twice a day. Bodega Chacra philosophy is minimum human intervention. Grapes were left to ferment on their natural yeasts for about 3 weeks.

Once the alcoholic fermentation finished the wine was decanted by gravity into French barrels of the highest quality (made by artisan coopers that we selected), the mix used is of about 50% new oak and 50% one wine oak. Natural malolactic lasted for about 2 months on its primary lees and then the barrels were racked only once, the wine rested and matured in barrels for 11 months.

The “Treinta y Dos” was blended the 24th of February and further bottled un-fined and unfiltered the 27th of February 2009.