As the owner/winemaker at Familia Mayol, Matias Mayol is a third generation vintner whose grandfather left his vineyards in Spain for Mendoza where he planted vines in the early 1900s. In 2006, Matias took over the vineyard management from his father, including that of the three plots that his father purchased in the 1990’s.

Working organically in the vineyards, Matias said, “The effort comes back to us once the wine is bottled.” To ensure acidity, Matias and his crew remove by hand the shoulder of leaves on each and every cluster to encourage early ripening, as Matias tends to harvest 7-10 days before his peers.

Farming some of the best single vineyards in Mendoza, where every 100 feet the temperature drops one degree Celsius, Matias is able to plant a variety of varietals, with Malbec as his dominant grape. Planted to poor soils of loam and lime with alluvial deposits, the vines are then hand-harvested and destemmed without crushing before the fruit is fermented with indigenous yeast. The Familia Mayol Old Vine Malbec “Finca Montuiri” is made from a single block of vines planted in 1926 at 3,020 feet, making it one of the highest altitude vineyards in the world.