Casa Umbra Valle de Uco
An open snowmelt canal beside vines in the Valle de Uco.
Snowmelt canal The water was here before these varieties

History

Mendoza’s vines depend on snowmelt. Canals were already carrying Andean water across this desert when the varieties Casa Umbra bottles arrived in the province.

  1. 1550s

    Vines in the oasis

    Spanish settlers brought Vitis vinifera into the Argentine interior in the sixteenth century. In Mendoza the plants went into ground already crossed by irrigation canals.

  2. 1853

    French varieties

    On 17 April 1853 Mendoza established the Quinta Normal and brought the French agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget from Chile. He planted French cuttings, among them Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec. Casa Umbra bottles the first two and not the third.

  3. 1870s

    Phylloxera

    Phylloxera did not clear the Mendoza vineyards the way it cleared Europe. The nineteenth-century plantings stayed in the ground.

  4. 1990s

    Up into the Uco

    Growers planted higher in the Valle de Uco, on gravel fans under the cordillera. The nights are colder there. Pinot Noir ripens on the highest of those sites, which is why it is one of the three wines.

  5. Now

    Three wines

    Casa Umbra works those high vines and bottles Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Nothing else is offered.