When in the mid 1880s Pascual Toso set out towards Argentina from its home town, Canale D’Alba, in Piamonte, Italy, he could not have imagined that he would become the founder of a winery, which is today one of the oldest and most prestigious wineries in Argentina.
Tradition, authenticity and innovation are the core principles of Pascual Toso. Meeting their master winemaker Felipe and listening to him passionately describe the processes he goes through to create these wines was fascinating.
We tasted 6 wines in total, each tasting more divine than the previous as we worked our way through from their estate Malbec and Cab Sav to the Magdalena Toso (named after the mother of the founder of our winery) which was simply one of the best glasses of wine I have tasted.
Las Barrancas is in a stunning location with premium quality soils, ideal climate and environment, located in Mendoza, in the district of Maipu within the Mendoza River highland. In the area, at around 750 meters above sea level, more than 400 hectares belong to Pascual Toso.
It is a heterogeneous terroir, an uneven piece of land going down 7 meters, where stretch soils with bare rock in which grapes stand up with all its quality, to deeper soils with green coverage.
Las Barrancas possess excellent conditions for climatic agriculture, with warm days and fresh nights, low humidity relative and high heatstroke what is translated in vineyards with excellent quality of fruits and sanity. The water for irrigation comes from the snow of the Andes mountain trough the main River of the county, “Mendoza River”. Organic matter is very scarce due to the quick decomposition it goes through because rains are not heavy and there is intensive cultural activity. Although the soils are of similar origin, various textures may be found in small areas.
An absolute pleasure to be taken on this journey of wine with Felipe and an experience I shall never forget. Not readily available in the UK but searching online does show some stockists and I do believe there was some talk of getting the estate wines into Waitrose…
Thanks to the guys at Pascual Toso for their generous hospitality and wonderful company.
💋
My World in Pictures 