Day 4 - Golf and Wine

Day 4 – Golf and Wine

What could be better than playing golf with the first tee time of the day on a beautiful, sunny morning using a riding cart AND having a caddy? I am sure the non-golfers reading this can thing of 1000 such things, but for the golfers reading this … you get the idea. Now, we went to the minimalist clubhouse to get a cobbled set of clubs and range balls to play, and the course is more like a mediocre public course, but hey, I am playing golf in January in Argentina! My caddy, the knowledgeable Bob Lazard, and I had a very pleasant and peaceful ride around the 9-hole layout.

The extravagant clubhouse.

I should note that the course layout is actually quite nice (it was designed by 2 Argentinian pro golfers). With continued investment and growth in the property, some additional maintenance and landscaping would make it a really cool place to play. Steve managed to par the first hole, have a birdie on a par 5, and end the round with a respectable 41 [although it required a mulligan and some liberal ball placement in the less-than-pristine fairways]. Of course, this could never have been accomplished without Bob sagacious advice. As a side note, I am close to completing my continental tour – playing golf in America, Europe, Asia (India), Australia and now South America. Africa is the last on my list.

A view from the course. .It looks very much like the southwestern US.

A par-5 that traverses the vineyards.

Note the exquisite chip shot for a gimme.

A challenging Par-3 over a gulch with dessert-like flora.

After golf (we were the ONLY tee time this morning), we had a tour and wine tasting at the bodega (winery, wine cellar). The winery is actually still a construction in progress, but Bob has noted significant improvements since his last visit three years ago. The senior vintner is Mauro Nosenzo who met us for the tour. Mauro speaks very little English, so Pablo assisted in the translations during the tour.

We went to the vines to see the grapes – specifically Cabernet. They are small grapes and they were in the stage of turning from green to purple. Another 4-6 weeks and the picking process will begin. We then went inside to see the processing facilities where everything is strictly temperature controlled. We learned about cleaning, fermenting etc. and we saw 10,500-liter containers of fermenting wine. There were hundreds (maybe thousands) of barrels of French oak that housed special editions of wines being fermented in the barrel. Apparently, this gives it more flavor and body. They produced 70,000 bottles of wine in the last year and they believe they have capacity to produce 150,000 as demand ramps up for more Algodon wine in the US.

Mauro was very friendly and accommodating of my total lack of Spanish and very patient with Bob’s attempts at Spanish. As a side note, I will say, that Bob does a very commendable job communicating in Spanish. Anyway, we were surprised to hear how old Mauro was (63). He studied wine making at university and has been a vintner since 1978. We swapped some pictures of grandchildren and all agreed (except for Pablo who is ~30) that grandchildren are magnifico. We tasted a variety of wines directly from some barrels and enjoyed standing around learning about what it takes to make wine, and they get ~4000 bottles per acres, and too many wine facts for me to consume.

After some friendly hugs and handshakes it was off to lunch at the restaurant for the requisite 2-hour dining experience, except this time we were done in 90 minutes! I think it was a new record for Chef Gaston. They apologized profusely as if they were rushing us when, in fact, we were ready to move on to an afternoon of reading, writing, pooling and other activities rightly classified as “general laziness.”

It was arranged that we would eat dinner with Sergio (recall him from yesterday at the pool?), who is a top financial guy in Argentina for the Algodon Group. The Spanish influence is strong in Argentina, and this applies to dining as well. Bob and I were told dinner would be at 9:00pm, and when we arrived, no one was at the restaurant. People were arriving gradually about 9:30, we didn’t sit down until 10pm and didn’t get menus until around 10:15.

Sergio invited some of his financial team, some independent auditors from New York and some other investors or potential investors – a total of 16 people. After some introductions, it turns out that one of the investors went to Elder HS in Cincinnati (where my Dad went, coached … and a rival to LaSalle HS where I went). He grew up in a parish about 4 miles from my house. We knew lots of the same people and places, and he recalled that there was a Don Ruberg who coached at Elder and Xavier. We told others of Cincinnati favorites such as Skyline Chili, Graeter’s Ice Cream, LaRosa Pizza etc. It also turns out the a woman investor used to work for Eli Lilly in the early 2000’s as a sales manager in the San Francisco area. We shared some Lilly stories, although she is not with Lilly anymore.

The two potential investors I sat with are in a different financial league than I will ever be. One was a mid-40’s guy who started his business career in Silicon Valley in the mid 90’s and had all sorts of interesting experiences/investments. The other was a commercial real estate guy who worked for a large bank. Besides owning 10 houses in Florida that he bought 10 years ago in the real estate bust, he had a full portfolio of commercial properties. Other investors owned wineries in California, some had sold large businesses, one doubled a the mayor of a small city of 40,000 people in central California etc. A very friendly, unpretentious and engaging group of people. I had fabulous dinner conversation and at my end of the table. All these business guys were intrigued to have a scientist to talk with. We also shared book titles that we enjoyed and thought others might. Of course, I recommended Sapiens and the Elder guy said, “It’s on my desk waiting for me when I get home.”

Anyway, we finished dinner after midnight and walked back to the hotel, once again gazing amazingly into the night sky and the Milky Way. Simply glorious.