Estela Armando’s family has been growing grapes in Mendoza since 1887, one year after their arrival from the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. Estela’s great-grandfather started the family wine business by growing grapes and making wine, and then taking it by mule train in leather wine bags to sell to the workers building the Trans-Andean railroad. The present Bonarda vineyard was planted by her grandfather and father in 1963. The combination of a unique place, old vines, and very little irrigation creates grapes of unusually high quality.