An Economist’s Second Life As A Winery Owner In Argentina

An elderly man took a deep breath while trying to control the uneasiness in his stomach, preparing his mind to hear bad news as he made a vital call during the middle of the night; he was a grape grower and winemaker during harvest wanting to know if there was going to be rain in the next few hours and how bad would it be. During those rainy years, this elderly man along with his adult son would have to spend hellish days trying to harvest as fast as possible as each moment that was lost would translate into useless grapes for quality wine and sometimes all that work would only yield very little. It was tremendously stressful each year as these men never took for granted that Mother Nature would give them an unpleasant surprise and no matter how hard they worked or how well things went in the beginning of the season their livelihood could be taken away in a heartbeat. A young girl working at the winery witnessed the tremendous amount of stress and misery that came with such a path in life and she vowed that once she became an adult she would get “as far away from wine as possible”; that little girl was Anne Bousquet who was the granddaughter and daughter of the men who owned a family winery in Southwest France.

First Life

Anne started her journey of getting away from working with wine by first receiving an undergraduate degree in Economics from a university in Toulouse – around 9 ½ hours away from her hometown. Then, as an exchange student in the U.S. at a university in Minnesota, she was given an opportunity to get a masters in Applied Economics that would be completely covered by a scholarship. Not only would this moment set her on the path of having a successful career as an economist but she met her future husband, a man from Spain who went into finance as a trader and would also eventually become her business partner.

Eventually moving to Boston, Anne and her husband Labid al Ameri both found success in their respective fields with Anne analyzing and making projections for the paper packaging industry. After seven years she was promoted to a higher position that had her and her husband move to Brussels in Belgium. During this time, Anne’s father made the bold move to sell the family vineyards, winery and home – everything – and moved to Argentina to plant a vineyard so he could organically grow grapes. The winery was called Domaine Bousquet honoring their family wine legacy in France. It was 2005 and before their move to Brussels, Anne’s father called them to ask if they could help him sell his first vintage of his Argentinian wines. Labid resigned as a trader to take over the sales and Anne took four weeks off from her job so she could attend ProWein, the largest wine trade show in Europe, located in Germany, and they quickly sold out of their wines made from organic grapes as there was a big demand; within three years they were selling a million bottles per year.

Domaine Bousquet

As Anne’s father started to feel overwhelmed having to ramp up production as their sales significantly increased, he asked if his daughter and son-in-law would move out to Argentina to help him. It was 2008 – Anne was juggling a newborn daughter and her full time job as her husband was getting busier and busier with sales; it seemed that the sales of Domaine Bousquet would only escalate. So after ten years with the same company, she resigned and in March of 2009 they moved to a tiny isolated town in the Tupungato area of Mendoza. They had already fallen in love with Argentina when they visited Anne’s dad back in 2001 and as Anne says, “walking through those vineyards had a big impact on us.” It was certainly challenging to live a significant distance from any major town but she figured they wouldn’t have much of a “social life with a one year old” as well as the enormous task of building the largest winery exclusively growing organic grapes in Argentina. It was quite a shock to go from being an economist living in large cities in the U.S. and Europe to living in a rural area in South America, not even being able to speak Spanish – the one thing her husband could do that she could not as he was raised in Spain.

But Anne and her husband took on the challenge of not only investing in the winery but building an infrastructure to get supplies and bringing in workers that would then build a community that had at one time been abandoned. She is a believer in training and promoting from within and one worker who started on the bottling line straight out of high school has become the head of purchasing and a local young man who was sent to New York City to intern at restaurants as a cook is now their chef running their winery restaurant as well as all their harvest pickers coming from the local town in Tupungato. Their idea of sustainability is not only using 100% organic grapes but building a foundation for economic success in the community that was once non-existent. Currently, 80% of Domaine Bousquet exports come to the U.S. as the demand among Americans for organic, socially conscious wines that are affordable has exponentially increased over the past decade.

“Virgen”

Last year they decided to experiment with no sulfites being added to a red blend called “Virgen” which is the Spanish word for virgin. It was given the name because “it has no chemicals and no sulfites so it is a virgin”, Anne says with her big, generous smile. She was very direct and honest about her feelings about sulfur as she is not convinced that it causes headaches. Wine has a minimal amount of sulfites as opposed to various foodstuffs that is consumed daily, such as dried fruit. But she said that there is a demand in the U.S. for wines without added sulfites as there is a general concern about what people are putting in their bodies and as long as they could make wines with pure fruit flavors without any flaws she was up for the new challenge. Her first release, which came out in 2019, sold out in a little over two months and she was certainly shocked by its success. This year she released the 2019 “Virgen” Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon as well as the original Red Blend – as harvest goes from February to April in Argentina. She has even been able to qualify for U.S.D.A. (U.S. Department of Agriculture) organic approval for the “Virgen” wines since her grapes are organic and there is no addition of sulfites. The rest of her wines qualify to be labeled as being “made with organic grapes” as they are all certified with Ecocert.

“It is like having two different lives.”

The challenges of building such a large organic winery in the middle of such a desolate place in Argentina as a foreigner were unimaginable and crushing at times but as Anne says, “I would do it again in a heartbeat” and it is a good lesson to “never say never”. Today, Anne lives with her family in Miami as she needs to spend one week in Argentina each month overseeing the winery and vineyards as well as traveling around the U.S. for sales and her husband travels around the U.S. as well as Europe for sales and so it places them in the middle of all their necessary travel destinations. Anne has the electric energy and uplifted spirit of someone who is fulfilled and content in her life and she loves the idea that she has lived “two different lives”.

In the beginning, the last thing that Anne wanted was to be involved in the wine world, but her situation now is completely different. In Argentina it is easy to grow organic grapes as it is has a dry climate with lower disease pressure in the vineyards and the high altitude of Domaine Bousquet vineyards, over 4,000 feet, combined with lots of sun assure ripe grapes with freshness. And Anne gets to use her keen intelligence that has been sharpened by her previous experiences as running a large operation is dependent on an analytical mind and she gets to have a very different, more enjoyable relationship with the vines than her father and grandfather had on their tiny family estate.

Her life is proof that there are many lives within people and sometimes taking the unconventional path when reaching a fork in the road on the journey of life isn’t always so crazy. For some, their first life gets to a point where they hit a wall, and for those who live for a challenge, that wall may mean that they are ready to live another life that is within them, and like in Anne’s case, that previous experience did not go to waste as there was a different perspective and set of skills that allowed her to build one of the largest organic wineries in Argentina. How many lives does each person have inside of her? That question will never be fully answered for anyone but for those who get to live two fully successful lives, that seems more than anyone could ever hope to attain. 

All of the below wines are from Domaine Bousquet estate vineyards, located in the high altitude Alto Gualtallary wine region (vineyards at the foothills of the Andes at around 4,000 feet) in the Tupungato area of Mendoza, Argentina.

NV Domaine Bousquet, Brut Sparkling Rosé: Organic grapes of 75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay. Second fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Delicious sparkling rosé with ripe strawberries, zingy cranberries and a fresh finish. Suggested retail price: $13.

2018 Domaine Bousquet, Reserve Chardonnay: Organic grapes of 100% Chardonnay. This is part of their premium varietal line with grapes from plots that produce lower yields and hence makes a wine with greater concentration of flavor. Rich peach flavors with hints of toasted nuts and a mineral finish. Suggested retail price: $18.

2019 Domaine Bousquet, “Virgen” Malbec: USDA Organic and No Added Sulfites. Organic grapes of 100% Malbec. Fresh blueberry fruit and spice with underlying notes of broken earth. Suggested retail price: $13.

2019 Domaine Bousquet, “Virgen” Cabernet Sauvignon: USDA Organic and No Added Sulfites. Organic grapes of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Cassis flavors with a juiciness on the palate with a hint of gravel. Suggested retail price: $13.

2018 Domaine Bousquet, “Gaia” Cabernet Franc: Organic grapes of 100% Cabernet Franc from more premium plots. The name “Gaia” stands for the earth goddess. Complex notes of fresh tobacco with smoky espresso that had plush black fruit on the palate with a long, flavorful finish yet plenty of acidity to give it brightness. Suggested retail price: $20.

2018 Domaine Bousquet, “Gaia” Malbec: Organic grapes of 100% Malbec. Pretty violet notes on the nose with supple layered fruit that had silky tannins and a prolonged finish. Suggested retail price: $20.

2017 Domaine Bousquet, “Ameri”: Organic grapes of 60% Malbec, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Syrah and 5% Merlot. This is their top selection, iconic wine that is from one of their best vineyards that is planted with Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. Anne said that since her last name is on all the wines it was time that her husband had his last name on one and they made it their best wine as she says she couldn’t have done it without him. Black pepper intermixed with smoldering cigar that had plenty of lush blackberry fruit yet it had an elegant backbone of acidity that gave it lift and the finish was long and expressive. Suggested retail price: $36.