There is something hopeful and satisfying about budbreak. Vitality returns to the vineyards and with a tiny speck of green, the master wheels are turning. It’s time.

Before you can grasp nature’s impressive ability to compress months into days, the playful specks of green have become full mature leaves. And then it happens… our first little Malbec grapes appear.

This year, the start of harvest has been particularly gratifying at Altos Las Hormigas after a very difficult and trying year. Last year, an unfortunate and untimely hail storm devastated our Estate vineyards just days before our hail nets arrived- a show of cruel irony that we had to take in stride. Remnants of this abuse can still be found on the battered shoots….

But always being the optimists (if you do not see the glass as half full, you should probably not venture into wine growing) we have a belief that great things come from hardship. And indeed they do. As of mid October, 2012, the progress of growth in our Estate Vineyards is astonishing. The vines have returned with a venegance…