Daniel Pi at a glance
Born 1960 in Mendoza City Training Juan Agustin Maza University: graduated as a winemaker in 1983. Don Bosco oenology college: started white wine research in 1984 Career 1985 head winemaker at Quirós winery; 1992 hired by Grupo Peñaflor; 1998 becomes head winemaker at El Esteco; 2003 becomes head winemaker of Trapiche; 2009 first vintage of his family label Tres14; 2010 becomes winemaking director for Grupo Peñaflor Family Wife Cecilia (a radiologist), children Daniela (28, studying to be a winemaker) and Gonzalo (26, a programmer) Hobbies Cooking; sharing meals, wine and music with friends; hiking; architecture
had to take them back – the wine was crap,’ he laughs. ‘At that time Torrontés wines were very heavy; nobody liked them.’ Fortunately Pi was able to reinvent the winery’s style of Torrontés, before turning his focus to old-vine red vineyards in the region and seeking out distinctive terrains to plant new vines.
Eye for detail
After rising to the challenges of San Juan and Salta, in 2002 Pi returned to his native Mendoza to become head winemaker of the group’s latest acquisition, Trapiche. Founded in 1883, Trapiche came with a long history as a large producer of table wine for a domestic market. Pi’s goal was to switch the balance, and in less than 15 years, Trapiche’s fine wine production grew from 5% to 65%, with exports growing from 3% to 25%.
Despite Trapiche’s size, Pi has always taken a meticulous approach. His first task when he started was to visit each and every grower – all 80 of them. One such visit was an inspiration: ‘I met two brothers in their vineyard, one was 78 and the other was 80 years old. I asked to continue buying their grapes, and they told me that their dad always had the last word. I laughed and asked if they were pulling my leg. They took me into the house to meet their father, Felipe. He was 103 and still running the vineyard! I realised there are lots of stories behind the growers.’
Pi set Felipe’s fruit aside, and isolated the other unique grower lots into microvinifications. He had decided to make a single-vineyard series, but what made this series particularly radical is that he didn’t want the label to focus on the name of the winery – but that of the grower.
‘There are 23,000 growers and only 800 wineries in Argentina – that’s a lot of anonymous people who never get recognised on the labels. We need our growers, so we need to take care of them,’ he says.
It took time for Pi to convince the commercial team, but Trapiche released its Grower Series with the 2003 vintage – including a label (pictured left) dedicated to the centenarian grower Felipe Villafañe. This new series was a runaway success and has become the company’s icon line.
Building a legacy
Pi’s most maverick move however, is found on the other side of the country – on the coast in Buenos Aires. ‘Nobody imagined we could make a coastal wine in Argentina,’ confides Pi about the Costa & Pampa vineyard he and viticulturist Marcelo Belmonte planted in 2009. The experimental vineyard succeeded and in 2019 will total 40ha.
How did they calculate the ideal spot for Argentina’s first coastal vineyard? ‘It wasn’t scientific at all!’ laughs Pi. The story goes, ‘We were drinking a lot of wine…’ – Pi and Belmonte were near Mar del Plata beach resort one evening, merrily reminiscing. ‘We each spent our childhood holidays there and remembered how everyone wore sweaters in summer. We realised it was cool climate with
plenty of water, so we convinced the company to invest in a vineyard.’
The move has broadened the horizon for Argentinian winemaking regions, beyond the western Andes corridor, and laid a blueprint for future coastal vineyards. ‘With global warming, the future lies in places with more water availability,’ Pi says more seriously.
A more intimate project is Pi’s family label, which he started with his children, Daniela and Gonzalo, in 2009. The name Tres14 (3.14) is an inside joke about their surname, for which Pi was bullied at school. ‘This wine was a chance to make our weakness a strength.’ They called the first vintage ‘Imperfecto’ (imperfect) to celebrate its flaws but, after bottles were gifted to wine friends, Imperfecto gained a cult status. Pi and his daughter Daniela, now studying winemaking, have produced a vintage together ever since.
He is also in the process of building a winery for the Bemberg family, who acquired Grupo Peñaflor in 2010. Describing himself as a ‘frustrated architect’, Pi has helped to design the modern winery in Gualtallary with Mendoza architect Mario Yanzón – though details are under wraps until next year.
This isn’t the first time Pi has helped to build a winery for Peñaflor. When he returned to Mendoza in 2003, he caught wind of a historical winery that Trapiche used to own. ‘It was located across the old railway tracks and I heard that it was one of the most beautiful wineries. But I couldn’t see it at all – it was covered in trees and bushes. So I went exploring with a machete!’
Indiana Jones-style, Pi reached the overgrown, abandoned winery and ‘fell in love immediately’. He spent two years convincing Peñaflor to buy it, and then two more years planning the complete restoration. The 1912 Florentine building was re-inaugurated in 2008. ‘For me it is a piece of art and shows something in the blood of the Argentinian wine industry for more than 100 years – the beautiful blend of architecture and winemaking,’ he explains.
As a winemaker, Pi too has that blend of artistry, architectural design and technical precision in his blood. It is both his studious approach and his affable appreciation of the consumer’s pleasure that has established him as one of the most respected winemakers of his generation.