2023-10-22 06:15:00
The Miras family winery is located in Fernández Oro, Río Negro. Their wines are made with grapes from old vineyards, located in different locations in the province and from their own vineyard with varieties planted in 1958.
Malbec, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Trousseau and Torrontés are the grape varieties that are grown in the farms of the Upper Valley. Under the Miras and Miras Joven brands, the winery produces around 80,000 bottles in limited editions, exporting to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In addition to marketing in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Mendoza, Chubut, Neuquén and Río Negro.
A family story, a story of challenges
Marcelo Miras He is the owner and responsible for the very high technical quality that Bodega Miras wines have achieved. Likewise, he is responsible for continuing one of the productive activities that drove the economic and social development of the Alto Valle.
He is also responsible for putting together a work team that drives towards the same horizon, a team made up of all the members of his family.
Already an agronomist, Marcelo Miras decides to continue his university studies. Counting on the support and trust of his parents and prioritizing his passion and intuition, he enrolled in a degree in Oenology and Fruit and Vegetable Industries at the Juan Agustín Maza University. While studying, he works on the farm learning fundamental cultural tasks.
The life of Marcelo Miras is drawn from outlining challenges. At 26 years old, already graduated, he travels from San Rafael (Mendoza) to Roca along with his partner Sandra Ponce, his two small sons Andrés and Pablo and an Aconcagua of dreams.
At that time, no one imagined that this productive region, between the fence and the Negro River, would be the place of residence for the entire family to this day.
“It was a great challenge. Sandra and I were leaving our family, our parents, our siblings, our friends, our college classmates, and our winemaking activity. Although Mendoza is a wine producer par excellence, we came for a challenge,” recalls Miras.
The Humberto Canale winery was one of the first places of experience and learning for the winemaker. The participation of Marcelo Miras in that place was key.
Together with the work team at that time, they carried out a great task both in the vineyards and in the winery. From this professional intervention came the invitation to set up the current wine cluster of San Patricio del Chañar. “The proposal arose to set up the Fin del Mundo winery. At that time, vineyards had already been planted and everything that is the Chañar region was beginning to develop. Julio Viola had already started his venture and they invited me to participate,” Marcelo Miras immortalizes the memories of his journey and training.
“That was another big challenge. We did a very nice job with Julio and his family. Together with the team we put everything together. I participated from the foundations of it. Launch a new winery, in a new region, in wine-growing terms. In the country and in the world, San Patricio del Chañar did not exist as a wine producer. It was a personal and professional challenge. Starting to make wine with the grapes that were produced there, and the fact of coming out with wine from a new region and positioning those wines, was a great job,” Miras recalls and is excited regarding such professional work.
Five children, three grandchildren and a winery with export wines
In parallel to working in the vineyards of San Patricio del Chañar, Marcelo and Sandra renewed their professional and family challenges.
The dream of having a winery was the new bet. This is how weekends and vacations were allocated for the new project. lWinemaking first reached a scale sufficient to share among friends and colleagues. However, The participation of his children in production generously expanded the number of liters.
“In my family we were producing, to consume with friends and family, very few bottles. In 2005 we looked at the stock of the fledgling winery and we had more than 6,000 bottles of wine, which was a fairly large volume to drink with friends. It was a bit beyond expectations.. “So we started marketing them,” he shares between anecdotes.
Andrés (37), Pablo (36), Celeste (31), Luciano (24) and Ana (22) are the five children of Marcelo and Sandra. With different academic backgrounds and experiences, they are all part of the winery. They know each of the vines, they know the moments of the grape process and they actively intervene in the family project. The cultural tasks inherent to the activity, the harvesting of the grapes, the production of the wine, the aging, the bottling, the marketing and communication circuit of the wines are in charge of their sons and daughters.
Marcelo, through perseverance, work and support in the production process, has known how to transmit and seduce this family who chooses to continue with the same thirst for enthusiasm of his reference and father.
The “Wine Route” in Río Negro
Wine tourism is a tourism format that focuses on promoting wine production areas. It offers wineries the possibility of communicating the origin and quality of their products.
Collaboration between wineries, entrepreneurs and institutions is essential. Caminos del vino is one of the products developed in terms of tourism policies in the province of Rio Negro and brings together a dozen wineries to discover and taste.
Pablo Miras, Marcelo’s son, is a journalist, sommelier, future winemaker and is in charge of marketing and communication at the winery.
“In the last year and a half we saw that there are many people who spend one or two days to visit the wineries in the area. This didn’t happen before. Tourism was more of a passing thing. The new reality drives the desire to start receiving visitors much more. We are getting into this issue and trying to organize ourselves with the work of the farm and the production to respond to this demand,” Pablo shares.
Because it is just another service in the winery, some coordination and internal planning is required.
“We have the winery open to tourism. As we manage it, being a family winery, the only thing we try to do is coordinate the visits one or two days in advance so that we can really take the necessary time that the visit requires,” explains Pablo Miras, current manager and operator. from the winery.
The culture of a town
The water resource, the climatic conditions, the hours of natural light, the clear sky and the heterogeneity of the soils allow for high quality viticulture.
Río Negro coexists with a living cultural, social, architectural and economic heritage. Wine production has been one of the activities, along with the production of pears and apples, that drove the local economy. Telling the winemaking process is also telling the history of the region. Accompanying and collaborating with productive development policies means increasing the complex economic structure (directly and indirectly) that the wine industry deploys.
“As Alcides Llorente said, when one drinks a wine, one drinks the cculture of a town. That is why when you bring wines from the region, you are carrying the identity of the area”, concludes Marcelo Miras, along with his son Pablo, in the interview with “Río Negro”
Contact
National Route No. 22 Km 1208. General Fernandez Gold, Black River
Tel +54 9 299 411 0408
Email: [email protected]
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