Wine was always present in the life of Sofia Pescarmona. Coming from a family from Mendoza, since she was little, wine was never missing from the meals at her grandparents’ house at a time when sodas were not well regarded. “They served us a small glass of soda and a little wine to color it,” he remembers, and he drank it, although he didn’t like it very much. When she was studying at university in Boston, her father always came to visit her with a few bottles under his arm. “He brought some vinas but wine is an acquired taste and I only started to enjoy it at 25, perhaps from traveling and visiting wine-growing areas,” he says. At that time, Sofía was studying philosophy and international relations and Lagarde It was just one of the family businesses. He worked in different companies, especially in telecommunications until in 2001 when he asked his father to join the winery and he agreed. “I always say that it was a good time to start because it couldn’t be worse,” he says.
Married to photographer Lucio Boschi, she divides her time between Mendoza and Jujuy where her husband has a museum and a school and where she works with a community of photographers and artists. Today, Sofía Pescarmona, at the head of Lagarde, is one of the big names in the wine industry; its restaurants Stove and Zonda were recognized in the first installment of the Michelin guide and opened last year Floor Onea market with different gastronomic proposals in an old recovered family factory.
News: Do you spend a lot of time in Jujuy?
Sofia Pescarmona: Now with the kids in school less than before, but I met Lucas living there and his photography work is centralized there, I am involved and I love it too.
News: He moved many times!
Pescarmona: I lived in Buenos Aires until I was 12, then we moved to the United States for 6, we lived in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and then in Boston, very friendly, very beautiful cities. When I returned, I settled in Buenos Aires, but then I moved to Mendoza at age 30 when I got hooked on Lucio and we were thinking about starting a family. He lived in Jujuy and although he is from Buenos Aires, he could not imagine living in Buenos Aires. We settled in Luján de Cuyo, I work five minutes from my house, little traffic and surrounded by nature, I can’t complain,
News: When you took the reins of the winery, what did you find?
Pescarmona: I found a very masculine industry, very old-fashioned in some ways. When I started, they were all men and it was a much smaller company, with 30 people. Today at Lagarde we are 150 people and half are women, I believe a lot in complementary perspectives, I love working with women and men, diversity nourishes teamwork.
News: Was it difficult for you to bear the surname Pescarmona?
Pescarmona: At first it’s hard, you want to earn your place and not give yourself any batons, but I was always very responsible, I took things very seriously. Today I value the past, the family culture and I am super proud. It has helped me a lot to grow in every way, I learned from successes and mistakes.
News: What was the family’s relationship with the winery like?
Pescarmona: Almost like a hobby, but always with an eye toward excellence and quality. During those years prior to my entry, a reconversion was carried out thinking about the future, applying new technologies. In the 90s, my parents invested a lot in the winery, they brought varieties such as Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Viognier from France and Italy, they planted the La Jacintana vineyard with the first Israeli drip irrigation systems that were not in Mendoza. Later, I began to discover our old estates, such as Drummond, which is more than 125 years old, planted in 1905, rediscovering the value of history, of the old, ungrafted vineyards, and the Semillon that was also on that estate.
News: You launched one of the first Cabernet Francs in the country.
Pescarmona: Yes, in the 90s, at that time we realized that Cabernet Franc had great potential in Argentina, it was developed in a different way than the French one where it is planted in more humid areas and I think that the blend of Cabernet Franc and Malbec has transformed into one of Argentina’s flagship blends.
News: How did gastronomy enter the family project?
Pescarmona: Gastronomy was always in the family DNA, we are from an Italian, Spanish and French family, my grandmother had a two-hectare garden, it was a bit of the post-war European culture where everything was produced at home, nothing was thrown away, the lemons were They were bought in season and stored in the basement with sawdust so that they would last all winter, the same with the oranges that were preserved with salt or made in syrup, preserves were prepared, all of this was very present in my family.
News: And the restaurants?
Pescarmona: From 2001 to 2011 I dedicated a lot to exporting and opening markets. Once a year our importer visited us, we entertained him with a barbecue and a long after-dinner meal, which is something very much ours and the world marvels at it, it is not something so common elsewhere. With that idea we began to transform an old house into a 20-cover restaurant with a grill in front. In 2013 we started building Fogón, which was one of the first restaurants in Mendoza and allowed us to show our wines, tell our history, our culture, that’s why Fogón is called vineyard cuisine because it tried to replicate those family lunches at my grandmother’s house. I really look for the identity of Argentina and Mendoza, what differentiates us from the rest of the world. Because when you sell anything you have to differentiate it, find something that makes it special. We don’t sell wine, we sell our terroir, our history and part of that is eating outside under a fig tree, a barbecue with vegetables from the garden. For me it is very important to maintain these customs and for the people of Mendoza to feel proud of that.
News: In 2023, the Michelin guide landed in the country, highlighting restaurants in both Buenos Aires and Mendoza. What impact did the arrival of the guide have in Mendoza?
Pescarmona: Viticulture was going through a creative boom, great wines and winemakers, surrounded by incredible nature and excellent gastronomy, but only now with direct flights, did it begin to explode. And I think Michelin came to validate what was already there. Mendoza obtained 7 stars and 8 mentions, that motivated others and in 2024 many more restaurants will have opened. That raises the bar for everyone.
News: Within the winery’s portfolio are the historical lines and the Hermanas Project that you develop with your sister Lucila. How did the idea come about? What is it like to work together?
Pescarmona: We love working together, she takes care of all the commercial, marketing and exports. We both had different tastes and we understood that in those differences there was a story to tell. She began to focus on reds, Lucila is a lover of Cabernet Franc and the Malbec-Cabernet Franc blend that we launched, and for a long time I have been promoting the great whites of Argentina and for making whites of height, quality, climates. colder and without wood. Although we are 10 years apart, we are very close, with my brothers too, although they dedicated themselves to something else in their professional lives, but they love coming to the winery, enjoying it and giving their opinion. This is not an easy industry, you live a little stressed all the time but Argentinians are very resilient. I think that now it is going to be difficult for us to live in a world with less inflation.
News: What is your opinion regarding current events in Argentina? Are you optimistic about this political and economic scenario?
Pescarmona: I hope so, but I think that Argentinians will have a hard time adapting to this new order, we are always waiting for the next crisis but despite that, we are a very beautiful culture where joy always prevails and there are always reasons to celebrate.
