.. saccharomyces bayanus (Flor)

PerSe Volare de Flor III NV (Vino de Guarda de Crainza Biologica) Mendoza

PerSe’s organically aged white wine was the creation of David Bonomi and Edy del Popolo who are leading one of the most interesting small-scale wine projects in Argentina, with wines that aim for excellence and for which they dared to try their hand at the difficult technique of making wines under a veil or flor!

“Volare de Flor was born as a sequence of events. My father lent me his garage in 2001 to make some of our own wines and when we finished making the Chardonnay the ´lees´ were left intact after bottling in two demijohns. My father drank those wines. They had a reductive state due to the high concentration of yeasts and the veil/flor formed on top.”

David Bonomi, the current director of oenology at Bodega Norton, said that this particular story gave rise to one of the most outstanding organically aged wines on the local scene. I asked David when preparing a note to publish with the Wines of Argentina entitled “The supply of organically aged wines in Argentina is growing.”

“We finally transferred everything that had been accumulated over the years into two barrels. My father liked them, because he said they reminded him of the wines his Italian uncles made in Bergamo, and every time I took wine from them I would refill the barrels, in which the veil/flor would begin to form naturally.”

David remembers that at university they were not taught the technique of making organically aged wines, and that at most at that time something from Jerez arrived to try. It should also be noted that until the generation of the 1980s, the formulas were not shared among winemakers, so if someone knew it, it was very difficult for them to teach it of their own free will. Bonomi says that it was his grandfather José who allowed him to learn.

“Sixteen years passed and in 2016, when we decided together with Edgardo del Popolo to start the PerSe project, I told him that I had a blend of Analúa (a project that David was working on with his wife and had decided to discontinue in favor of the new one) that could be used for PerSe and that he should accompany me to try them. That day, by chance, Edy saw those two barrels of my father’s and although it was not the idea that they would go to PerSe, he wanted to try them. When he did, he said to me: this is impressive, you don’t know what you have here, this is Jura, unique.”

“Coincidence mixed with causality, that’s how Volare de Flor was born.” So they asked themselves, could it work for Volare? and they looked for a special bottle, a small one of 37.5cl.

“On a trip to Prowein, I spoke with a Frenchman (who was the father and wine manager of Altavista at that time), who produces several Jura wines and he made me try everything from Jura and Jerez. It reminded me of my grandfather, it moved me to tears. It’s a matter of generations,” David recalls. So, Volare de Flor was born following the family pattern and not with a technical instinct, although Bonomi recognizes that they later refined it.

A nice anecdote about the meaning of Volare de Flor is when the following year, Jose “Pitu” Roca, owner and head of the Celler de Can Roca (a Spanish restaurant that was chosen as the best in the world) arrived in Argentina and they gave him the wine to try. The surprise was huge when he decided to take it and include it in the restaurant’s wine list, where it was tasted and appreciated by the Spanish wine critic Ignacio Medina who published the news about Volare de Flor in the newspaper El País. In addition, there it was tasted blind with other Jura wines and nobody noticed that it was a biologically aged wine from Argentina and not from Jura.

“I knew how to listen to and understand my father, to understand that he liked them because they were the family wines.” David Bonomi. “To be able to make a biologically aged wine well, you first have to have a great wine, very healthy and with tremendous acidity, being able to store them in ideal conditions of humidity and temperature and fundamentally not being anxious, being patient and opening the barrel only once a year.“

David says that they currently have two criaderas and six barrels (which were added two at a time each year). The first three sacas were progressively taking blends from these barrels, the first from two barrels, the second from four and the third from six. They only make one saca a year and have made four sacas so far, since 2016. In the last one they made a blend including part of the wine that they have kept since the beginning in 2001.

Volare de Flor is obviously a very very limited production and they plan to keep it that way, a little gem whose stock when it goes for sale (Volare III) has always sold out immediately, despite the fact that it is not cheap since it costs around 350GBP+ at the official exchange rate. Whoever is looking for it should not be discouraged, the launch of the fourth edition is planned for next September.

We have one little 37.5cl bottle of Volare III here in stock but it has been reserved for a  customer. If you, however, do have interest in Volare IV please message me here and I can see what we can do for you: william@worldwineconsultants.com

Thy Glorious 12th

“O man! while in thy early years,

How prodigal of time!

Mis-spending all thy precious hours

Thy glorious, youthful prime!

Alternate follies take the sway;

Licentious passions burn;

Which tenfold force gives Nature’s law.

That man was made to mourn.” R.Burns