An Arizona transplant who’s been making garagiste style wine in Mendoza for several years, if you see a harvester who looks like he’s missing a surfboard, it’s Brennan Firth.

A versatile and hands-on guy involved with every step of his wares from grape picking to label design, Brennan’s Cepas Elegidas is slowly but surely making a name for itself; snap up his Chapeau Petit Verdot – if you can track it down.

What was the last wine you produced?
A 2015 Malbec from El Cepillo, La Consulta. The lowest alcohol red wine I’ve even produced but super intense, mineral and concentrated.

What did you drink last night?
Suono 2012 – a  93% old vine Malbec from Agrelo, 7% old vine Lambrusco from Lunlunta aged 40 months in barrels.

Tell me about your favourite harvest.
Sebastopol, Sonoma, in 2007 I worked for a few labels and with several awesome winemakers, such as Dutton Estate Winery, Paul Mathew Vineyards and some custom crush clients such as Nickel and Nickel’s newest project, EnRoute Winery, all of which are located in the Russian River Valley AVA. I was also hired to build a roof from scratch for a barn that housed a few tractors on my days off.

Where in the world would you like to make wine?
Antarctica! It is the only continent in the world that doesn’t make wine….yet! I applied for a hydroponics job in a greenhouse years ago with hopes of growing some vines and then make the first wine ever from Antarctica and probably grow the first grapes inside of a tent. But it turns out Raytheon’s base down there is super selective with who they hire so I missed that boat…

If you were a wine, you’d be…
A California Zinfandel, because it’s not super well-known by most or very popular, but once we meet I’m pretty hard to forget about, be it a good thing or not.

Ph: Brennan Firth