Entrometido

Francisco Fraguas & Conrado Gibbs
About
Owner & winemaker: Francisco Fraguas & Conrado Gibbs
Vineyards: 5ha across 7 sites, 50% estate-owned, 50% purchased from partners
Vineyard management: Sustainable, working towards organic conversion
Soils: Varied by region, including sand, limestone, heavy clay, and deep rocky soils
Grapes grown: Torrontes, Ugni Blanc, Sangiovese, Ancellota, Malbec, Moscatel Rosado, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Bonarda
Annual production: 20,000 bottles
Quick facts:
- Francisco and Conrado are both originally from Mendoza, and after traveling to vineyards around the world, they returned home to make wines showcasing the diversity of the region.
- “A person drinking our wines should know this is a project made by two friends who believe that great wines can be produced naturally, without the use of oenological chemical products. They should know the bottle they opened is part of a very limited batch, a little treasure. We would really like them to realize they are not drinking a wine made by a huge company, an industrial and standardized product. We are two friends, who have another work, without any external capital or investors, producing wine because it is our passion. We do not live from this; we live for this.” – Francisco Fraguas & Conrado Gibbs
Francisco Fragues and Conrado Gibbs were studying together in a wine master’s program when they had the opportunity to travel and visit some of the biggest and most famous producers in Europe, from Bordeaux Grand Crus to historic Port houses to Cava producers sending millions of bottles a year all over the world. However, once they returned home to Mendoza, they realized that these weren’t the wines that stood out to them. “On the other hand, the wines from some small producers were marked in our memories like we were drinking those wines at that very moment,” Francisco and Conrado tell us. “So, after nearly 3 years, 2 harvest seasons, having visited over 100 wineries and tasted even more wines, we were absolutely certain of one thing: the wines that truly shine are those connected to their land of origin and the people behind them. That was our mind-blowing big discovery.”
This discovery became the guiding principle behind Entrometido. The two men, born and raised in Mendoza, aim to create wines that express what it is that makes the wine region so special. “We are convinced that is one of greatest regions in the world to grow vineyards, with a huge diversity of styles to show in every corner of the province,” they explain. “Each zone has something unique to shine. The challenge is to understand the soils and plants from 700 to 1150 m.a.s.l. , varieties, harvest, fermentations, everything is like growing in different places of the world at the same time. To be able to make wines that represent each place is truly our life.”
Roughly half of the grapes come from vineyards they own themselves, while the other half comes from growers with whom they work side-by-side throughout the year. The vineyards are found in diverse sites across Mendoza, from Barrancas Maipu in the east with its sand and limestone soils, to Uco Valley in the west with deep, rocky soils. “We do not produce any wine from a vineyard that doesn’t have something extremely singular,” Francisco and Conrado assert. All of their vineyard sites are sustainable, and they are working towards organic certification in the future.
In the cellar, they start with pure healthy fruit, and work as hands-off as possible from there. Wines are fermented with native yeasts and transported via gravity, and no chemical oenological products are used. Aging takes place primarily in concrete tanks and neutral oak barrels.