By Elin McCoy for Bloomberg.netFor his 50th birthday two years ago, Phil Asmundson, vice chairman of technology at Deloitte LLP, flew to Argentina for a vacation and ended up buying a vineyard.
As a long-time wine collector, making his own was a secret dream. During harvest in March or April, he’ll fly down from New York to pick malbec grapes and play cellar rat.
Asmundson bought 3 acres of land in the Uco Valley for just under $200,000 from Vines of Mendoza, a five-year-old company in Argentina that sells parcels of prime vineyard acreage, plants them to owners’ specifications, then manages caretaking and winemaking. Owners can participate as much or as little as they wish. The 87 so far come from 7 states and 9 countries.
“There aren’t many passions that are made easy to do,” says Asmundson. “This was turnkey.”
The other deciding factors? He loves the country’s signature malbec grape, and was persuaded that the wines could be “really great quality” because Vines of Mendoza has the help of well-known winemaker Santiago Achaval.
When the deal was final, he and his wife celebrated with bottles of Salentein Primus malbec ($45) from Argentina and Heitz Trailside cabernet ($80) from Napa.
Vines of Mendoza sent him a case of unmarked wines to taste, and used his notes to help focus the style of wine he wanted to make.
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On a freezing December day, I caught up on the latest developments with co-founder Michael Evans, 45, bronzed from days in vineyard sun, at Manhattan’s Topaz Thai restaurant. Over a spicy salad lunch, he clicked through drawings on his laptop of the.. Read full article
