Bodega Enrique Foster

Based in Luján de Cuyo – Mendoza, Argentina, The Enrique Foster vineyards sit at an elevation of 3,000 feet above sea level on the eastern flank of the Andes, with hot days, cold nights and little rain. Bodega Enrique Foster specialises in creating Malbec varietals. At present, they have two Malbec vineyards located in what is generally acknowledged to be the world's best terrain for the Malbec grape, Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. The first vineyard, in Carrodilla, where they have built their winery, consists of 30 acres of ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines planted in 1919. The second, in Las Compuertas, has 20 acres of less venerable vines planted in 1966. In 2010 they acquired an additional 60 acres of Malbec vines planted in 1939 in Medrano, a traditional source of fine grapes in Mendoza. 

The construction of the winery began by digging out a huge crater of more than 6,000 cubic meters to create cellars to accommodate up to 2000 barrels. The cellars were then totally buried under tons of earth and highly insulating pumice stone to ensure a constant temperature and humidity ideal for the ageing of their Malbec without the use of air conditioning. Complementing the traditional methods of vine care, Bodega Enrique Foster have adopted the latest procedures of canopy management and green harvesting to reduce production and thus concentrate the flavours and sweet tannins of their densely planted old Malbec vines (2,200 vines per acre).

The old vineyards of Mendoza do not use automatic drip irrigation but rely instead on irrigation canals first built by the Huarpe Indians a thousand years ago to capture the constant flow of melting snow from the eternally white-capped peaks of the Andes, thus creating an oasis of green in the desert of Mendoza. The sandy gravel affords excellent drainage and is ideal for the vines. At times, old vineyards have used, to good advantage, their ancient water rights to flood the dormant vines each winter for two to three weeks under a foot of water. This curious procedure has no effect whatever on the vines at that time of year but it does drown potential vine pests in the earth such as the phylloxera beetle, thus maintaining the health of the vines ecologically.