BODEGA CHACRA PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA
In 2004, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta (whose grandfather started the legendary Sassicaia Winery in Tuscany) purchased the first of Bodega Chacra’s vineyards, a property with an existing, though abandoned, vineyard planted in 1932 in the Rio Negro Valley in northern Patagonia. This vineyard of gnarled and ungrafted Pinot Noir vines was later added to a neighboring vineyard of vines planted in 1955. With these old vineyards, ostensibly in the middle of nowhere, Piero has created a winery that exists outside of the usual New World vs. Old World debate and is redefining what is possible with Pinot Noir (and now Chardonnay with the help of Jean-Marc Roulot) in the Southern Hemisphere.
