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Alejandro Couce, 52 years old, is a wine producer who started the business just four years ago, after two near-death experiences made him understand that his job as a software seller around the world was no longer going. In dialogue with THE NATION, He told how he managed to get ahead within a humble Uruguayan family that settled in Argentina and that currently produces a type of wine unique to the countrywhich was exported throughout the United States.
Alejandro was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the context of a low-income family. Although he defined that he was lower middle class, alleged that it lacked certain elements that currently seem essential, such as a refrigerator or a kitchen. At the age of 13 he started working to help in his house and shortly after they moved to Buenos Aires, where he was able to train and begin a path of personal and professional advancement.
After his time at the university, Couce received a Bachelor’s degree in Systems and from there he began to sell software programs to different companies around the world, which required him to travel to more than 60 countries. Despite having his family in Argentina, over the years he went to live in the United States, in order to continue on the path of success, the same one that he believed he was convinced of how it had to be.
“I had the opportunity to be in 69 countries, to live in 9, to speak seven languages, to meet many people, but in 2019 I got the feeling that I had to give a new meaning to the word success,” said Alejandro, at the same time he understood that That concept was not about the material or professional, but about “connecting with your emotions, having more emotional intelligence,” and reflected on other wonders in life such as connecting “with the smile” of his children or “reading a book at night, instead of being in five countries in a week or flying to Ireland for a two-hour meeting.”
Graduate He managed to accumulate 100 trips in one year and for this, the organization told him “enough.” In 2011 he met her partner, Graciela, of Brazilian origin, in the work environment, and she gave him another perspective on life, much more spiritual; However, in 2013, she became seriously ill during a stay in the South American giant, which caused a feverish state of more than 40° that “the doctors couldn’t lower it with anything”.
Because of this symptom, he was hospitalized and in that context he had a kind of “epiphany”, in which he looked at Graciela and mentioned his dream of having a vineyard. “If I start making wines, you will come with me to Mendoza”, he pronounced, without yet knowing the province of Cuyo. Something that surprised the woman and that she understood was due to her delicate situation. This was Alexander’s first near-death experience. Two years later, he was paralyzed at a Formula 1 event in Mexico and even suffered two sudden faints on a plane.
However, the physical alarms were heard on December 1, 2019, when her second son, Alan, was born. There the concepts of “transforming and “resignifying” ended up placing a deep emphasis on his life. At that moment he finally understood that he no longer wanted to continue with that rhythm of constant travel and permanent stress. Despite the joys and professional and economic triumphs, what Alejandro was looking for was something else: enjoy more of your family and the moments with each of them.
It was there when In 2020 it acquired a winery already in operation in Los Chacayes, Valle de Uco, Mendoza. He finally fulfilled his dream since he began to conceive it in 1998. Without having any idea about wine, other than the different varieties of strains, without knowing the production methods, he aligned himself with expert winemakers on the subject and gave it a go.
26 years ago, while Alejandro was studying for graduate school, he traveled to South Africa to visit a friend who had a vineyard. At that time “there were no wineries that sold wines produced in the two wine-producing rings, one at latitude 33 that passes through Argentina, Chile, Australia… and another further north that passes through Spain, France….” .
That was the fact that sparked the interest in having his own vineyard in Argentina; However, at that time his work took precedence.
After Alan’s birth at the end of 2019, he traveled to the quintessential wine-producing province in Argentina. “It was the only wine region that I didn’t know; “I had already been to all the wine regions of the world and I had never been to Mendoza,” he said, and after his first contact with what is now his vineyard, he immediately acquired the property in Los Chacayes and got down to business. construction site.
The truth is that this area is particular because it is located at a considerable altitude, just enough so that thanks to the melting of the mountains, lower the minerals necessary for a vine to grow in the middle of nowhere. “They are alluvial soils, because the minerals fall, roll and are deposited in the ground,” he explained.
Alejandro wanted to make a different wine within the possible standards of the more than 1,800 existing Malbec labels. Thence Alegra Reserva was bornwhich combines his name and that of his wife. “We found a wine that spent 22 months in French oak barrels first use. Obviously, it is more expensive, its production is more expensive, but we wanted our wine to have 85 percent Malbec and 15 percent of a grape that rotates from one year to the next,” he noted.
This is unique in Argentina because in addition to its aging in the barrel, it is left for 10 more months in the bottle, so the customer receives a product matured for 32 months in total.. Hence, its ultra premium quality.
After that, the Alegra Alamela arrived, in honor of the combination of their children’s names: Alan and Melanie, who It has been in the barrel for 8 monthswhich is also reserved in a French oak barrel and thanks to this, a much clearer fruit flavor is achieved than in others.
Alejandro chose to produce a wine representative of our country, since currently more than 80 percent of the type that is exported is Malbec. And his first destination was the United States, a market that I already knew and that is a large consumer of this drink manufactured here. To future, plans to expand through Brazil and Mexico.
For find these wines in Argentinait is possible to purchase them online by entering the official website or rather in different locations such as: Overo Bar in Palermo, Bebimente in Recoleta, A fuego Fuerte in Palermo, Restaurante 1888 in Pilar and Restaurante 7 fuegos de Francis Mallmann in Mendoza.
