Argentina · Other producers

Bodega Noemia de Patagonia S.A

Hans Vinding-Diers makes two old-vine Malbecs from ungrafted vines planted in 1932 and 1955 in the Río Negro valley, using no new oak and minimal extraction.

The producer

Bodega Noemia de Patagonia sits in Mainqué, a farming district in the Río Negro valley deep in Argentine Patagonia, where the sandy alluvial soils never hosted phylloxera. Vines planted before modern grafting practices became standard simply kept growing. Two blocks are the entire story: J. Alberto, four hectares planted in 1955 and certified organic, and Noemia, 1.5 hectares of ungrafted vines planted in 1932, massale selection, on their own roots.

Hans Vinding-Diers, Danish by background, arrived in Patagonia with a clear counter-argument to the mainstream Argentine style. Where much of the country's Malbec aimed for concentration through new oak and heavy extraction, he chose minimal intervention, old barrels, and whatever the old vines produced without being pushed. Both wines age in second, third, or fourth-fill barrels at most, never new wood, and extraction in the cellar is kept to what is needed to activate fermentation rather than build tannin. The wines are saline, fresh, and dark-fruited in a way that has no obvious Argentine precedent.

Known for

Old-vine Patagonian Malbec from ungrafted pre-phylloxera vines, certified organic, no new oak

Notable facts

The story

The Countess's Name

Hans Vinding-Diers and Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano signed the papers in 2001 with a clear arrangement: she held 51%, he held 49%. Her name went on the label. For seventeen years the winery ran that way, the Countess's majority intact and her first name on every bottle that left Patagonia. In 2018 she decided to sell. She offered Vinding-Diers the winery on terms he later described as very good. He bought it. What he did not change was the label. The winery was now his alone, the founding partner gone, and the name on every bottle was still hers. Noemia remains the Countess's name on wine she no longer owns, in a region she helped put on the map, made by the man who bought her out.

The Countess's Name

Hans Vinding-Diers and Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano signed the papers in 2001 with a clear arrangement: she held 51%, he held 49%. Her name went on the label. For seventeen years the winery ran that way, the Countess's majority intact and her first name on every bottle that left Patagonia. In 2018 she decided to sell. She offered Vinding-Diers the winery on terms he later described as very good. He bought it. What he did not change was the label. The winery was now his alone, the founding partner gone, and the name on every bottle was still hers. Noemia remains the Countess's name on wine she no longer owns, in a region she helped put on the map, made by the man who bought her out.

From the atlas

Bodega Noemia de Patagonia

At A Glance

LocationMainqué, Río Negro valley, Patagonia, Argentina
Founded2001
WinemakerHans Vinding-Diers
GrapesMalbec, Merlot
Key winesJ. Alberto, Noemia
FarmingCertified organic (J. Alberto block)
OakNo new oak; second to fourth-fill barrels

The Producer

Hans Vinding-Diers makes Malbec in one of the few corners of South America where vines from 1932 still grow on their own roots. His estate, Bodega Noemia de Patagonia, sits in the Mainqué area of the Río Negro valley, deep in Argentine Patagonia, where the sandy alluvial soils never supported the phylloxera louse that destroyed most of the world's pre-industrial vineyards. Two blocks are the entire story: J. Alberto, four hectares planted in 1955 and certified organic; and Noemia, 1.5 hectares of ungrafted vines planted in 1932, massale selection, on their own roots.

Vinding-Diers, Danish by background, came to Patagonia with a clear counter-argument to the mainstream Argentine style. Where much of the country's Malbec aimed for concentration through new oak and heavy extraction, he chose minimal intervention, old barrels, and whatever the old vines produced without being pushed. The wines that came out were saline, fresh, and dark-fruited in a way that had no obvious Argentine precedent.

Place

Mainqué is a farming district in the Río Negro valley, roughly 1,200 kilometres south of Mendoza and well outside the latitudes where Argentine wine had traditionally been made. The valley floor is made of alluvial deposits, sand and gravel washed down from the Andes and settled over millennia into a free-draining, low-fertility soil. Phylloxera, which devastated European vineyards in the late nineteenth century and has since spread across most of the wine world, never established in Patagonia. Sandy soils block the louse physically; the aphid cannot tunnel and spread the way it does in heavier ground. Vines planted before modern grafting practices became standard simply kept growing.

The consequence for the label is direct: the Noemia block produces wine from ungrafted vines more than ninety years old, a situation nearly impossible to find in any other commercial wine region. The J. Alberto block, planted in 1955, reaches back into the same pre-chemical farming era. Water comes not from rainfall but from the Río Negro itself, delivered via a flood irrigation canal system dating to the 19th century, channelled across the blocks in traditional fashion to saturate the root zone and then drain.

Soil And Site

The soils across both blocks are alluvial in composition: sand, silt, and river gravel, low in organic matter, well-drained. Sandy alluvial ground puts vine roots under moderate stress, limiting canopy growth and concentrating what the vine produces. It also drains freely enough that excess moisture does not accumulate, which supports the certified organic programme on the J. Alberto block by reducing the fungal pressure that forces chemical intervention in heavier soils. Phylloxera's inability to spread in sand is the physical reason pre-phylloxera vines exist here at all.

Story

Vinding-Diers and Italian aristocrat Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano co-founded the estate in 2001, Cinzano holding 51% and Vinding-Diers 49%. For seventeen years they ran it under that arrangement, her name on the label and her majority in the paperwork. In 2018 she sold him the winery on terms he described as very good. He kept her first name.

The founding decision was itself against the grain. Patagonia was not a recognised fine-wine address in 2001. The Río Negro valley had table-wine production and some bulk output, but no cult following. Vinding-Diers identified the old vines, recognised the pre-phylloxera survival as unrepeatable, and built a cellar philosophy around keeping them alive rather than extracting from them aggressively. Every subsequent decision follows from that: certified organic farming to avoid chemical stress on ancient root systems, flood irrigation through the historic canal network rather than drip, and a cellar approach that limits punch-downs to yeast activation rather than tannin building.

By the time Cinzano sold in 2018, Noemia was already being sought out internationally as an example of what old-vine Patagonian Malbec could be.

Vineyards And Cellar

The J. Alberto block is certified organic: no chemical treatments, no synthetic sprays, no sulphites applied in the vineyard. Irrigation comes from the Río Negro canal system, flood-applied to the block rather than drip-delivered to individual root zones. Hand-picking brings the fruit in whole; it is then de-stemmed by hand. Extraction in the cellar uses punching down and foot treading, both traditional, but Vinding-Diers keeps the number of pump-overs to the minimum needed to activate fermentation yeasts. He is not building a wine through extraction; he is protecting what the old vines already have.

Oak follows the same logic. No new barrels appear anywhere in the range. Noemia ages in second, third, and fourth-fill barrels, where wood contact adds oxygen management without contributing toast, vanilla, or new-oak tannin. J. Alberto ages half in cement tanks and 600-litre barrels, half in stainless steel. Cement and large-format old barrels both preserve fruit character and allow micro-oxygenation without flavour transfer.

Wines

The range runs two principal wines, with a third, A Lisa, in production.

J. Alberto is 95% Malbec interplanted with 5% Merlot, drawn from the four-hectare block in Mainqué planted in 1955. Vine age is now past seventy years. The ageing split, roughly half across cement and 600-litre old barrels and half in stainless steel, produces a wine that is fruit-forward without oak character: deep colour, saline black fruit, graphite and violet aromatics, and tannins that carry without gripping. J. Alberto 2021 is rated to 2040. It is the estate's more available wine and the point at which most drinkers start.

Noemia is the flagship. The 1.5-hectare block was planted in 1932 on ungrafted, pie franco vines selected massale from the original planting. Production is tiny given the hectare count. The 2019 vintage shows deep, broody black currant and purple flowers over pithy black cherry and a thread of balsamic with a savoury edge. Ageing uses second to fourth-fill barrels, never new wood. The vine age and minimal extraction together produce a wine of considerable depth and a long, tapering finish.

In The Glass

Across both wines, the Noemía house character is saline rather than sweet, built on dark fruit rather than jammy extraction, and genuinely fresh despite the depth of colour.

J. Alberto opens with sweet violets and black cherry, then a saline cassis note and smoky graphite minerality underneath. Caramelised blueberry and a cherry kirsch nuance round out the aromatic picture. On the palate the fruit is pure and dark, the tannins seamlessly integrated, and the freshness holds the whole wine in motion rather than allowing it to sit still and heavy. The finish is long without being thick.

Noemia is a step deeper in every direction. The aromatics are less immediately open: earthy black currant, purple flowers, pithy black cherry, and a subtle balsamic quality with savoury gravity. Where J. Alberto announces itself quickly, Noemia requires time in the glass. Both wines share the estate signature: no oak character, saline minerality from the alluvial ground, and a freshness that would be unexpected in a wine this dark if you had only drunk concentrated Mendoza Malbec before.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with J. Alberto. It is 95% Malbec and 5% Merlot from the 1955-planted block, aged in cement, old 600-litre barrels, and stainless steel, with no new wood anywhere in the process. In the glass it gives sweet violets over dark saline cassis and smoky graphite, with blackberry fruit on the palate and tannins that feel ripe and even rather than grippy. The freshness is the thing to notice: a wine this deeply coloured and dark-fruited has no right to feel this alive, and that aliveness comes from the vine age, the low extraction, and the absence of new oak that would add weight and close the wine down. The 2021 is drinking well and will hold through 2040.

Anecdote

Hans Vinding-Diers and Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano signed the papers in 2001 with a clear arrangement: she held 51%, he held 49%. Her name went on the label. For seventeen years the winery ran that way, the Countess's majority intact and her first name on every bottle that left Patagonia. In 2018 she decided to sell. She offered Vinding-Diers the winery on terms he later described as very good. He bought it. What he did not change was the label. The winery was now his alone, the founding partner gone, and the name on every bottle was still hers. Noemia remains the Countess's name on wine she no longer owns, in a region she helped put on the map, made by the man who bought her out.

Final Word

Noemía occupies a position in Argentine wine that has no direct equivalent: two single-vineyard Malbecs from vines that predate the modern industry, farmed organically, made without new oak, and built around freshness rather than extraction. The sandy Patagonian soils that preserved those vines through a century of viticulture remain the condition of everything the estate produces. J. Alberto is where to start. Noemia is where the argument becomes complete.

Sources

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