Sommeliers Turn Winemakers #4

Vinicast’s Gabriel Dvoskin talks about Pinotom, his Argentine Pinot Noir.

Given that Gabriel Dvoskin worked in Paris interviewing vintners in the 1990s, it was inevitable that France’s terroir would get under the Argentine journalist’s skin.

After purchasing land and planting vines in El Cepillo, a cool, southwestern corner in Mendoza’s Uco Valley, Dvoskin later trained as a sommelier at New York’s International Culinary Center. He produced his first Pinot Noir, Pinotom, in 2014.

How did you become involved in the wine industry?
I worked as a journalist in Paris in the 1990s and every now and then I’d write about wine, but as a reporter rather than a specialist. I got to know the land by interviewing vintners; one summer I harvested in Pommard and Côte-Rôtie; and the rest came about from sampling as many wares as possible at Parisian wine stores.

Then everything changed and I left the good life in Paris and the vineyards behind when I was sent to work in the Balkans as a war correspondent. Not long after, I gave that up to undertake humanitarian work in Timor, then in Afghanistan, for almost a decade.

In the meantime, I’d often visit Mendoza to see friends who owned vineyards and it was one of them who propelled me towards the adventure of having my own estate. I also visited wine-producing regions such as Georgia, Collio, Jura and Oregon, and met exquisite wine fans such as Selosse, Gravner, De la Mornière, Tissot and Niepoort.

For the rest of this piece, please visit Departures.