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Jo-Anne Reflects
Real estate, Mendoza, what a beautiful view ... After six days, Thursday is our
rest day
or, otherwise known as our
real estate day.
Today we are meeting up with one of the owners of the Valle de Uco Lodge, John Ecklund, to look at properties that they have in the surrounding area and under development.
It is a cool fall day and we get up (fairly) early with the plan being to have breakfast, get the blog back on track and meet up with John at 11:00 AM.
Meeting John
When we get to breakfast at 9:30 AM, John is already there and he introduces himself to Bryan as his
date for the day.
John is a retired petroleum engineer (maybe 55) and avid entrepreneur who has hooked up with a friend, Stephen Vletas, and invested in Argentina real estate. During breakfast John describes how he and Stephen started operations in Argentina and the plans they have for expansion.
We had a very interesting day with John as he has a wealth of information about investing in real estate in the Mendoza area. Portales del Plata (the name of their company) is focusing on developing property in the Valle de Uco area. The views of the Andes are really second
View of Potential Property
This is a view of the area that we looked at, as set out in Google Earth. Note the vertical exaggeration is set at 2:1. to none.
Visiting Properties
We visited several properties. First, John took us to three plots of land to show us the (i) before, (ii) in process and (iii) after version of the land development. These plots were purchased for U.S. buyers and Portales del Plata is farming the land, pulling out the abandoned apple orchard and planting vineyards.
Portales del Plata also develops the infrastructure and builds the house, if that is what the investor is looking for. The advantage that Portales del Plata brings to the table is the contacts with the real estate lawyers and accountants, the knowledge of the way things work in Argentina, and the on-site management of the property.
They have some interesting projects that they are working on and it is evident that John is excited about his work down here.
Lunch at Le Polada De Jamon
After visiting several properties, we stop for lunch at Le Posada del Jamon. We had a mixed plate of proscutto and sausage, bread, olives, pickled eggplant and tomato salsa. The main course was pork ribs and salad, with parmesan, walnuts and sweet onions.
We had the following wine with lunch:
(1)
Step 1 - Find Abandoned Land
There are multiple tracts of land that has been abandoned and is no longer being farmed. These tracts may have old apple trees or vines on them or the land may simply be overgrown with weeds. Salentein Syrah - a nice syrah; dense, fruit filled, with a nice after taste. We rated this wine a 7/10.
(2) O Fournier Urban Uco Tempranillo - in our opinion, this has to have one of the worst-looking labels but it’s actually a good value drinking wine; it was great with lunch we rated this wine an 8/10.
After lunch we drove over to where the grapes harvested from John’s vines growing at Valle de Uco Lodge are being made into wine by a local winemaker. This is a small, rudimentary bodega but John is excited about his production.
We taste the wine directly from the fermentation tank. It was just juice (no alcohol yet) but had a nice flavor and we congratulated him on his first batch of wine.
We return to Valle de Uco Lodge and John takes us on a walking tour around the property. He and Stephen have done a very nice job of developing the land and creating a property that is harmonious with the surrounding nature. He shows us where he intends to plant more vines … will they be Pinot Noir, his dream from his native Oregon? We will
Step 1 - Old Cottage
John explained that this property, which was purchased by two attorneys from Texas, had a cottage on it that the previous owners had built. This is what remains of the cottage. just have to wait and see.
When we asked John about how they started growing vineyards around the property, John replied quickly,
We wanted some landscaping that we could drink!
We thank John for his time. He has given us a lot to think about.
We are now intent on getting the blog back in shape!
Bryan heads to the office at the lodge to upload the photos (a process that takes some time when being done from Valle de Uco, Argentina) and Jo-Anne records the events of the past few days. Marcelo, our waiter and wine consultant, gets us a bottle of the following (to help with the blogging):
(1) 2004 Andeluna Cabernet Sauvignon (Familia Reina) - the initial bouquet of chocolate is intense and surprising; it smells like desert; it is somewhat sweet for a Cabernet Sauvignon, big, jammy with limited oak (somewhat Zin-like) but we like it; we rated this wine a 8/10.
We get some good blogging (and wine tasting) in before dinner. We had another fabulous dinner accompanied by the following wine (thoroughly approved by Marcelo):
(2) 2001 La Celia Cabernet Franc - big vanilla bouquet, cassis, tannins, blackberries; we rated this wine a 8.5/10.
Step 2 - Flatten Field
In order to plant a vineyard, the abandoned land is cleared and then plowed to grade and flatten it. This usually takes several weeks. Bryan loved this wine and would like to get more.
There is only one other couple in the restaurant - a couple currently living in Buenos Aires who own a hotel in Brazil (
Sukhavati). We chatted briefly after dinner and they provided us with an interesting perspective on investing in Argentina real estate. Eckart is clearly skeptical and believes the prices (even though very reasonable compared to U.S. standards) are high and the country is unreliable.
The one thing we are struck by is the worldliness of the people we have met. It’s a big world out there.
After dinner we finish up our blogging.
We have a big day tomorrow visiting the bodegas in Valle de Uco before returning to Mendoza.
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Jeff McCartney
non-member comment
Colleague
That is one delicious looking steak.