Your special invitation to access to a never-before-imported malbec from the top of the world...
“Way out at what felt like the end of the earth, I found families that had been making wine for 200 years... critics rave about this wine... but up until now it’s been impossible to find here in America.”
– Will Bonner, Founder, Bonner Private Wine Partnership
If you’ve had wine from Argentina before, it was probably from Mendoza.
Mendoza’s a nice place - five-star hotels, ultra-modern wineries with all the latest gadgetry... they even have paved roads!
500 miles to the north... lies a little valley, surrounded by miles of desert on one side and the jagged peaks of the Andes mountains on the other... a valley known as the Calchaquí...
The Calchaquí Valley – The World’s Most Isolated Wine Region
Calchaquí wine is almost impossible to find here in America... you can’t even get it at the finest restaurant in Manhattan.
Entire vintages sell out in 24 hours to private lists of rich private buyers.
A single bottle – if you have to buy it retail – can go for over $500...
A rare bottle from the Calchaqui
When I popped my first bottle of this bold wine... I first got a hint of smoke... vanishingly short (the locals claim it comes from cattle drive campfires that so often burn out on the high plains nearby)
...then came the blackberry, the herbs, the leather... a hint of charred earth drifting across my palate... and an incredible, rugged mouthfeel.
A deep, intense wine so dark it looks black
In that moment, I was instantly transported...
To a land where cowboys still sleep under the stars using their saddle bags as pillows
...where women work looms in the early dawn’s first light
...where the nearest city is six-hours away across a jagged mountain landscape
... where a small brotherhood of winemakers – operating at what feels like the edge of the earth – follow a tradition 200 years old...
If you enjoy wine... if you’d like to taste wine as it truly should taste... then you need to sample an extreme altitude wine from the Calchaquí...
In fact, with your permission I’d like to send a bottle straight to your door. No middle men. No inflated prices.
I’ll explain why I’m doing this in a moment... But first let me introduce you to the “wine from the top of the world”...
Wine from the Top of the World
Argentina’s Northwest Frontier – The End of the World...
The Calchaquí is squeezed between miles of desert and the jagged peaks of the Andes Mountains...
After flying 5,000 miles to Buenos Aires... then another 500 miles to the small colonial town of Salta... you get in a 4x4 truck and begin your ascent into the mountains, reaching a plateau far above the clouds... then you continue into a vast desert...
(where you’ll be glad to have a couple spare tires in the back)
After six to eight hours, you finally reach the literal “end of the road”... the Calchaquí Valley.
The Hidden Vineyards of the Calchaqui – 10,000 feet above the world
10,000 ft. Above the World, the Secret to a Great Wine
Journey through this vast landscape... and you’ll hear gale-force winds ripping through nearby poplar trees... before they nearly blow you off your horse...
You’ll find yourself suddenly short of breath in this thin atmosphere... (the locals claim the winds “drive away the oxygen”... and eventually you start to believe it!)
Despite the heat, you’ll wear long sleeves and pants... to protect from the intense UV rays (the sun here is 80% more intense than Bordeaux)
At night, you’ll add more layers as the temperature suddenly drops as much as 77 degrees!
Winemakers, they say, like their grapes to get a bit of challenge.
But here, they cling to the edge of survival.
Were they any other kind of grapes...they’d probably never make it...
Long Extinct in Europe, an Old Vine Lives on Here
Nearly two hundred years ago, a few brave souls carried malbec grapes across the Andes from a port in Chile.
A good thing too...because after malbec arrived in Argentina, all the European malbec got wiped out (along with most of Europe’s grapes) in an event called the “The Great Blight.”
In fact, the European wine industry was only able to recover by replanting with vines from America.
So when people talk about great French wines today... they’re not actually French at all! They’re American!
But the blight never touched the remote, isolated wineries of the Calchaquí. Today, the old French vines remain there today...much older than any you’ll find in Bordeaux.
30 years is considered old in most parts of the wine world... in the Calchaquí, a third of vines are older than 100 years...
In such an extreme environment, these “lost vines” yield a third of what they should...
...for making money, it’s a losing proposition...
...especially given the near-total lack of modern machinery and the fact that the nearest port is about 1,000 miles away...
But they also produce a one of a kind wine...
First time drinkers often note its inky, near-black color.
So opaque they call it ‘black wine’
That’s a tell-tale sign of extreme levels of resveratrol.
Here’s what we found when we had a certified lab test our extreme altitude malbec against a common California red:
- ✓ 10 TIMES more resveratrol
- ✓ 93% less sugar
- ✓ 80% higher levels of anthocyanin (an antioxidant that lab and animal models suggest has a “anti-angiogenetic” effect, which is to say that it may inhibit tumor growth)
What Extreme Altitude Wine Does to Your Body
According to Harvard Professor David Sinclair, PhD, the chief benefit of resveratrol is NOT actually as an antioxidant.
Rather, resveratrol activates what’s known as the “sirtuin pathway.”
The “sirtuin pathway” in grape vines is essentially what allows the vine to survive the extreme conditions of the Calchaqui. It’s one of the principal longevity pathways found in most plants and animals.
When the plant comes under stress, it becomes flooded with resveratrol, which activates this “sirtuin pathway” and changes the plant from weakling to ultra-resilient survivor.
Human beings also have a surtuin pathway that works in the same way.
For instance, surtuins likely explain why fasting – which stresses the human body – appears to increase the human body.
So what does resveratrol have to do with our own sirtuin pathway?
Well, scientists now believe that resveratrol passes into YOUR body...and activates YOUR sirtuin pathway just as it did in the plant.
Effectively, the resilience and longevity of the plant – hard won after years in the wilderness – is passed onto you!
To quote Harvard professor David Sinclair, PhD: “if you stress a grape, you’ll get great wine...but you’ll also get a lot of resveratrol...when we ingest resveratrol, we get the same health benefits as the plant...we get the benefit of the plant stress as longevity.”
A Wine 200 Years in the Making
It’s a strange feeling when your car’s partway underwater and you’re still in it.
Especially when it’s pitch black.
Actually, it’s not a strange feeling at all. It’s panic.
A ways across the raging torrent – a wide, bone dry river bed just an hour before – a light flashed. Likely one of the vine workers with a flashlight.
He had probably seen the headlights sink beneath the water.
My brother gunned the engine, hoping for the best.
Then...a miracle. The front wheels caught on something - a log or a boulder? Just enough traction to propel the truck forward against the current on to a sandbank. An old man with a flashlight came running over to the truck.
The people of the Calchaquí don’t scare easily. After a lifetime up at the edge of civilization, their faces range to placid to imperturbable.
Yet, this old man’s face showed something almost close to alarm.
Vino? we asked.
Bueno... he replied.
Minutes later, we were sitting in an old gaucho bar way out on the frontier, uncorking a bottle.
All that is to say... we've risked our lives to find this special bottle of wine...
And thanks to some interesting connections across northwest Argentina (courtesy of our Wine Explorer), we did just that...
"The Malbec from the Top of the World"
This isn't just any wine...
This malbec comes from the world's 2nd highest vineyard... at 10,800 ft.
That's the highest vineyard in South America!
And is aged in the old barium sulfate mine Cava Mina Moya (the highest altitude wine cellar in the world; higher even than the vineyard, at 12,100 feet).
To say importing a wine like this is rare would be an understatement.
In fact, back in 2018 the world famous Master of Wine - Tim Atkin, put out a plea on Twitter for someone in the US to import this wine...
After months of negotiations, a couple bottles of wine, and a handshake (more binding than a signature in the mountains of Argentina), we pulled it off.
The wine itself is so limited in production and so remote from any civilization that the winemaker himself scribbled down what we owe him on a scrap piece of paper...
Our proof of sale
That's just the way it works in the Calchaqui Valley.
The Bonner Private Wine Partnership is the ONLY place in the US where you can get a bottle of 2018 Uraqui.
To find this bottle on your own, you'd have to be willing to endure the near 3 days worth of planes and four-wheeler rides up steep mountains to get there.
Not to mention, the cost of purchasing these wines and getting them back home - provided you didnt break any bottles getting back down the mountains... a common occurrence.
Safe to say, the cost is in the thousands.
Unless you know someone... which is where the Partnership comes in handy.
We do the dirty (at times, literally) work and you get access to incredible wines like this one.
You'd think this exclusive malbec must be $500+ a bottle...
Not by a long shot. See for yourself below...
Fair Warning: Wines as rare as this one go fast. Once all bottles have been claimed this offer will close.
Simply scroll down and enter your information to reserve your bottles.
Cheers,
Will Bonner, Founder, Bonner Private Wine Partnership
Special Release: Bodego Ayni Uraqui Red Blend | 2018 | Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina
Malbec from the top of the world
-From the 2nd highest vineyard in the world at 10,800 ft (highest vineyard in South America)...
-Never-before-imported into the US...
-Extremely limited production: Only 1,000 bottles made...
The 2018 Vino Tinto Uraqui combines grapes from two vineyards in Quebrada de Humahuaca, one at 8,800 feet above sea level and the other at 10,800 feet - the 2nd highest vineyard in the world. This blend of 60% Malbec, 30% Syrah and 10% Merlot is not aged in oak, and is made in as hands off an approach as possible. The wine is aged in the old barium sulfate mine Cava Mina Moya (the highest altitude wine cellar in the world; higher even than the vineyard at 12,100 feet).
Ayni winery is dedicated to making its production as eco-friendly and low impact as possible by growing organically, producing their own compost for the vineyards, and doing the harvest & much of the production by hand.
The result is a shimmering deep violet wine, with a range of herbal notes, black fruit, cassis and truffle. Intense and bold in the mouth, the juicy palate brings both lightness and body.
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