While 2020 is a year that won’t be forgotten by any of us, it’s also a year that marks numerous anniversaries; including 125 years since the founding of Argentina’s Bodega Norton.
The award-winning winery was established in 1895 and has a history that includes an English engineer, an Austrian crystal maker and an innovative Argentinian winemaker.
The opening of the Buenos Aires to Mendoza railway in 1885 was a landmark event in Argentina’s wine history. It cemented the significance of the emerging wine region of Mendoza in the Andean foothills.
One early visitor to the area was English engineer Edmund James Palmer Norton. Struck by the unique beauty of the landscape he decided to settle in the region. Norton also saw Mendoza’s potential for wine production and consequently established his eponymous winery in Luján de Cuyo, planting his first vines in 1895.
Jump forward almost a century and Gernot Langes-Swarovski was similarly seduced by Mendoza’s mountain grandeur. Heir to the famous Austrian crystal company (established by his great-grandfather Daniel Swarovski in the same year that Norton planted his first vines), Langes-Swarovski acquired Bodega Norton in 1989, heralding a new era of foreign investment in Argentina’s wine industry.
Today his son Michael Halstrick is at the helm, with winemaking in the capable hands of David Bonomi, who first joined Norton in 2002, under the mentorship of head winemaker Jorge Riccitelli. After leaving to work at other top Argentinian wineries, Bonomi returned and took over from Riccitelli when he retired in 2017.
A winemaker known for pushing the boundaries of winemaking in Argentina, Bonomi produced the country’s first sparkling Sauvignon Blanc while he worked for Doña Paula. He is also known for his work on the PerSe project with Edgardo Del Popolo, based in the unique terroir of Monasterio – dubbed Argentina’s ‘first grand cru’.
No wonder Bonomi was named as one of South America’s top 10 winemakers by Decanter in 2019.
Vineyards and wines
Bodega Norton owns five vineyards, spread across the main terroirs of Mendoza and the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Average vineyard age is around 30 years.
Perdriel is the original Norton property, where the winery is located. Sitting 950m above sea level, its 100ha are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec, aged between 30 and 50 years. Norton’s signature Perdriel Malbec, launched in 1950, is sourced from this vineyard.
Located near the winery, the 30ha Agrelo Vineyard sits at 950m on alluvial soil. It contains some of Mendoza’s oldest vines – over 93 years – which are used to produce the winery’s high-end LOTE wines.
Norton purchased the large La Colonia Estate in 1997. At 1,100m in Luján de Cuyo, it contains 1,045 cultivable hectares, of which 450ha are planted with vines. ‘I’ve planted more than 50 different parcels here, on different soils: alluvial and clay,’ says Bonomi.
The Lunlunta Vineyard, a 20ha plantation of Malbec dating from the 1920s, is the source of many of Norton’s high-end wines. Located up to 850m above sea level, the soil is mosaic alluvial with boulders, sand and silt.
Finally Norton’s most remote vineyard site is 70ha Medrano in the undulating hills of Lunlunta, which has the lowest elevation of all of the winery’s vineyards at 700m. Chardonnay, Chenin and Bonarda vines grow in its sandy lime soil.
The altitude of the vineyards is key to the styles of wines Bonomi makes at Norton. ‘The altitude creates a very different situation for the vines. It means we can obtain different flavours and different profiles from the grapes,’ he explains.
Altitude moderates the temperature while exposing the vines to more ultraviolet light. This allows Bonomi to produce vibrant whites with good natural acidity and well-structured reds.
Altitude: a passion project
In addition to the vineyards it owns, Norton has long standing contracts with local growers in other areas. ‘In 2018, I started to think about other parts of Mendoza. I put focus on the Uco Valley,’ says Bonomi.
Although it only takes around one hour to drive through the Uco Valley from north to south, the growing conditions here vary dramatically as you ascend the mountains. ‘When I’m in Tupungato the temperature on a normal day is around 20℃, but travel up, no more than 200m or 300m, and the temperature changes a lot,’ Bonomi explains.
Temperatures will drop by 1℃ for every 155m increase in altitude, while solar radiation increases by 15%. The altitude increases diurnal temperature variation, giving warm days and cool nights. ‘This means that acidity is maintained in the grapes at full ripeness; you can get lower yields with greater concentration and high polyphenol concentration.’
Altura (meaning ‘altitude’) is a passion project created by Bonomi to display the impact of altitude, microclimate and site selection. It focuses on 100% varietal red wines – Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir – and a white blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Gruner Veltliner.
The three Altura reds have been produced from grapes selected from different sub-regions of Uco: Gualtallary, Altamira and Los Chacayes.
Altura Malbec comes from Los Chacayes in the Tunuyán district in southern Uco with an altitude of 1,300m. Grapes from this area can produce wines with great concentration and potential for long ageing. Bonomi planted the 5ha terraced vineyard 15 years ago, on alluvial soil with red pebbles. Winemaking includes cold maceration, fermentation in small concrete vats with malolactic fermentation and ageing from 12 months in second-use French oak.
‘I hate over-extraction,’ says Bonomi, who has been reining in his use of oak across the Norton range, allowing the wines to speak more of their terroir.
Altura Cabernet Franc was sourced from grapes from the Altamira GI, with vineyards at 1,100m on sandy soil with large stones and limestone deposits. Like the Malbec, it is fermented in concrete vats and aged in second-use French oak barrels.
In the early 2000s, there were less than 200ha of Cabernet Franc planted in Argentina; today there are 1,200ha. ‘You need to study the places that you plant Cabernet Franc,’ says Bonomi. ‘It’s a nice grape, but it needs similar conditions to Pinot Noir. It needs the right place.’
Altura Pinot Noir is grown in Gualtallary in Tupungato – the most northerly and coolest area of Uco. Vines are planted at altitudes of up to 1,600m, the extremes of Mendoza’s viticultural limits. The wine was both fermented and aged in concrete vats to preserve freshness. ‘This is a typical Pinot Noir from very high altitude. It’s not a huge colour, but it’s very delicate,’ says Bonomi.
The Altura range reflects not only Bonomi’s talent as a maker of high-altitude wines, but shows how Bodega Norton is continuing to evolve as a winery in its 125th year, exploring new grapes and new terroirs.
See the latest Bodega Norton tasting notes and scores
You may also like
