The man, the dragon, the terroir and the wines (a view by Alejandro Vigil)
A man fighting with a dragon. The image that illustrates his brand El Enemigo represents the fight that every human being fights every day with his greatest enemy: himself.
Alejandro Vigil is an agricultural engineer with a master's degree in enology and another in irrigation. His passion for research began at INTA, where he became Director of Soil Analysis at the age of 28, and continued at Catena Zapata, where he founded the Catena Institute of Wine. From there he has led numerous research projects that contributed greatly to the birth of the Terroir Revolution.
But beyond his training and thirst for knowledge, Vigil is a hard worker who throughout his career has done every vineyard and winery task there is. His restless spirit overflows the limits of viticulture, leading him to produce beers, olive oils and even open his own chain of restaurants. His days must have more than 24 hours, otherwise it is hard to explain how he can do so many things at the same time.
All of this is driven by the unconscious curiosity of a child that leads him to question the established, to explore, to unlearn what he has learned over and over again, to take risks and push the limits a little further: "To understand how we should make each area, we had to unlearn everything we knew and take risks," he says. Sometimes that risk is measured and controlled, which is what they try to make happen with research, but other times it is an instinct based on acquired experience, which ultimately has to do with terroir.
Terroir, according to Alejandro Vigil
-We are taught that terroir is the relationship between man, soil and climate of a place....
"Terroir is the centuries-old experience of growing and making wine in a certain place."
Terroir is used in a marketing way, it is bastardized. To be called terroir there must have been at least two generations of people living in the same place. After that, the important thing is the effort of man, who is the one who does it all. Agriculture does not exist by itself, it exists because of man. This centuries-old experience is the knowledge developed over time and transmitted from generation to generation. Each individual is part of this "chain of learning" that remains in the wine.
The place, with its traditions and history, is the true protagonist of the wine.
I met Catena's people when I was working at INTA. My first thought was "these guys are suicidal". They had planted vineyards in Gualtallary 15 years ago, when there was nothing. With Dr. Nicolás Catena we thought about homogenizing a vineyard in Gualtallary. We soon realized that it was impossible and that's when I rethought things: how can we expect the plants to be all the same?
That goes against the terroir. It's almost a philosophical issue: how can we want us all to be the same when among humans there is only diversity? It's the same in the vineyard. I found parts with clay, another with sand and stones. Each one different from the other. From then on I began to understand the vineyards, the plants and the varieties. The people of Eugenio Bustos are different from the people of Gualtallary, so if there is diversity in the people, how can there not be diversity in the vineyard?
This concept of terroir displaces the individual from center stage and brings other things into play.
To understand it better, Vigil explains "The other day I had a 1780 Madeira. Who made it? It doesn't matter. What remained in the wine is that place, with its tradition and its history. The names are not important, because what remains is the wine. Of course in 1780 there was someone who took risks and generated changes, but that was also as a consequence of a previous experience that was transmitted to him by those who preceded him and that he then transmitted to those who came after him."
Sources:
http://acercatealvino.com.ar/2020/12/02/alejandro-vigil-terroir/
https://www.bacanal.com.ar/alejandro-vigil/
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If you like you can buy pack x 6 bottles 750 ml of El Gran enemigo in our wine store.
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