Dan assures me that in some ways Bodega Sottano was the most interesting of the four vineyards we visited. I missed many of the points our guide made, as I was struggling to keep the contents of my stomach where they belonged (see lunch, previous post). So here are Dan’s observations about Bodega Sottano.

This winery, it seems to me (Dan says), shows a great deal about how the wine industry has been able to grow so quickly in Mendoza. The winery is a first venture for the sons of a family with Mendoza winemaking roots. It’s relatively new, founded (I think) in 2003. Rather than investing a lot of money in building or landscaping, which are both fairly minimal, the founders have invested heavily in production capacity, using the most modern technology.

Aiming to make high-quality wines in the mid- to high-price range, Bodega Sottano is growing carefully. They currently use perhaps only a tenth of their winemaking capacity and rent the rest of their capacity out to others. This strategy has the dual benefit of allowing them to pay for the equipment that they ultimately want to be able to use, while at the same time allowing other start-up winemakers to make wines without any heavy initial investment in production equipment.

It’s a great win-win arrangement (Dan says) that shows how Mendoza could have moved from maybe fifty to maybe over a thousand wineries in just ten years, becoming one of the world’s top winemaking regions.