I was sitting in La Paz at high altitude and thinking about Bolivian wine, I just had a few days earlier a glass of Kohlberg 2007 in Copacabana. Why not visit some vineyards and wineries in Bolivia, that would be a change and lower altitude ?!

Looking at the map, Tarija in the South is the region where I have to go, 24 hours bus ride or 1 hour by plane. 140 Boliviano (Bol.) against 900 Bol, 20USD vs. 120USD, decided the easier way, fly. Aero Sul took me there with an over 2 hours delay, for no reason did we not start on time and then I just find out on the way we’re going to stop in Sucre. So how in earth would have they kept the 1 hour original initiatory with landing in Sucre fueling up getting people (and luggage) in and out and arriving in Tarija? I cannot imagine.

Arriving in Tarija International Airport, bag control at the exit, that my luggage really belongs to me is not a bad idea I must say. The first cab driver would take me for 40 Bol. into town, too much. The guy inside says 15 bol. would be a correct price.

Lots of hotels and hostels in town, not all of them are responsive when you try to make a reservation but I reckon there is always some place to stay. You get what you pay for.

There are some travel agencies who specially in wine tours, I got a map and some addresses at the tourism officee. I found Brujula Travel, who did organize it for 41USD, not cheap for a half day program involved 2 wineries an almost full coverage of the vineyards with a private guide and driver and luckily a bit of after tasting afterwards. The other possibility could have been that I contact the wineries myself, but with no addresses, short notice and background knowledge (which I have now, however) this would have been rather a bit more difficult.

The first winery on the list was a so called “industrial” winery. Generally you could categorize into industrial, the big players with the equipment and export possibilities and the artisan, much smaller local production and consumption less bottling and less technology advantage.

Campos de Solana in the outskirts of Tarija, Santa Ana and history goes back to 1925 in the family but the winery is a recent foundation. It seems they are well equipped, all the facilities are there for making good, clean wine. The grapes arrive in plastic boxes from the field and then come to a sorting band. Baume is used for measuring ripeness, harvest usually takes place when the grapes reached 12-15º Baume. The following grape varieties are at Campos de Solana: Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Shiraz, Tempranillo, Barbera, Alicante, Riesling, Moscatel. Could you find who is standing out of the line up
and might not be a star player under these conditions?

I’ll come to this a bit later by tasting the actual wine. Destalking takes place always, modern pneumatic press takes care of the pressing (around 1,5 bar). By asking the question regarding the yield I became following information: 250-300 QQ/ha, 1kg grapes make 1,3 litre of wine. Stainless steel tanks and everything temperature control ed it has to be as it can get really hot. We got into the “barrique” sanctuary,
which was very much temperature controlled, cool-cool-cool. 95% French (Limousin) oak and the rest American oak. They use the barrels for 5-6 years and usually the finishing wine is also a mixture of different barrels, some new some older. The price of a barrel is around 500USD so you will have to pay here as well if you go for barrel aged wines in Bolivia too.

In total the winery has a capacity of 1,2 million litre. The main soil formation clay with stone. We had a quick chat about Bolivian wine and whether there is any guide (annual, wine report, etc). I remember in the Tom Stevenson Wine Guide there was a line or two on Bolivian wine, which made me actually also curious as I do not know much about them, until now. Did I get to taste any wine at Campos de Solana? No, unfortunately not, they showed me the medals what they got in Brussels and Israel. I don’t know if they misunderstood when I mentioned that I judge for the 2 major competitions in London, that I would be flattered if I see some medals from somewhere else. Now how big is that, showing medals instead of the wine, great next time I judge a wine by its already received medals. No, probably not, I still love wine too much,

I’ll continue to do it the hard way and taste them then that’s what happens at the IWC and IWSC as well. I got to taste actually in this wine shop the Riesling from 2006, Campos de Solana and it was disappointing, it was volatile on the nose and had some oxidized tune to it. Like you walk in the garden and all the flowers dying- I told my guide, some Muscat aromas but very off, wet cellar it reminds me often. Flabby, low acidity it`s still not high enough, the Riesling plantings. By tasting this one wine I can not judge the winery as I do believe they make good wines (I reckon more on the reds then on the whites, however) otherwise they would have not won medals, and good reputations amongst customers. I hope very much that next time I ‘ll be allowed to taste
the wines as I’m very much interested and sure there is plenty of interesting stuff out there at Campos de Solana.

The next place was then this so called in (artesan) artisan winery in Concepcion 25km off Tarija. I would have never made it by myself to this winery and yet there were plenty of people. Bodega Casa Vieja, the atmosphere was great, people were drinking, singing and celebration almost all over the place, but don’t get me wrong everyone was in festive mood but behaving at its best. By the smell I could
tell fermentation is taking place, vigorously and probably openly too.
We walked around a bit before checking into the tasting room, I told them I have to spit it`s business as much I like to join the people
here. So we took the table and wines out into the open where I welcomed to spit on the ground, people singing happy birthday just next to me.
Most of them doesn’t even notice the stranger, who takes notes, asks questions and spits the wine out.

There were some Moscatel, Muscat Alexandria, Torontes, Oporto (Portugieser, but they still call it Oporto), Cabernet (I don’t know which one, the guy said just Cabernet) and Redoga (grape variety I never heard of). Most of them were sweet it’s almost a safe bet to say if you try wine from “artisan wineries” you are going for sweet wine, red and white both with high amounts of residual sugar. The Torontes was nice, but very much cloying, I was also showed a so called “singani” which is like “pisco” clean, clear wine distilled minimum 40% at the end, made of Moscatel. Very pleasant spirit I must say,
despite it has been distilled only once.

The wine maker was telling me that there are some vines just outside of La Paz as well a place he wrote down: Valle de Lurivaj, checked it, could not find anything on this.

We took the long way back to Tarija so I almost able to say visited the entire region, which goes somewhat 70 km south of Tarija and as around 2000 ha vine in total spread around.

I got a present at the travel agency, Vino Patero Doña Vita Rosado Cholero 2007. Cholero is the region no grapes on the label, I opened it the next night. I know you can not smell sweetness on the nose, but just by getting a whiff I would almost bet my salary on this that the wine is going to be sweet. And it was, sweet rhubarb, rhubarb pudding/cake, if it had no alcohol (12%) it would have been nice, but so I had to give it away, the porter took it with a smile. I told him I just opened it, it`s too sweet for me…he was delighted. Great, didn`t have to dump the wine.

As a final treat (and really that made me feel better) we visited the best wine shop in Tarija, La Vinoteca Tarijeña on the Calle Suce, corner of La Madrid street, just where my favourite restaurant was (Gattopardo) on the corner. The owner, Brun was delighted to show the wines and explain about the wineries and talk about Bolivian wine. The idea is that the wines are priced the same as they would be in the cellar available, sensible in a wine region. It had all the imporant “industrial” wineries listed and the most expensive (not counting some old bottles) was not more then 20 USD.

As Brun, pointed out some of these heavy fellows are aged for 3 years in wood. He had wines and singanis from the following wineries: Kohlberg, Campos de Solana, Rujero, Aranjuez, Casa Real, Kuhlmann, San Vicente and some others. He was recommending Casa Grande which I tried the next day. The Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, very pleasant and well made indeed. Had everything what you would expect from an everyday drinking Cabernet with soft smooth tannins and good finish and fruit. I tried the earlier mentioned Riesling from Campos de Solana, he agreed with me that white grapes are more difficult to handle in Tarija but the reds are very promising. I tasted the “basic” Kohlberg earlier so why not get something richer a Tierre Dorada Shiraz 2005. Full of black fruit and spice on the nose a whiff of wood made it more appealing and a ripe herbal attack on the palate (dry, obviously) with a good balance, nice tannins and fine finish. Very well indeed.

Vino de Altura-Bolivian wines are high and very promising at least the handful (mainly reds) what I tasted, and I do hope that I can taste more as they`re very interesting indeed.

Tags: tarija

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