Our Journey
Piacenza
Our story begins in the Northern Italian city of Piacenza, located around 40 miles southeast of Milano in the region of Emilia-Romagna. Piacenza is a city rich in history - birthplace of Julius Caesar’s mother and the defeat of the Roman armies to Hannibal in the Second Punic Wars; food - pisarei e fasö, anolini in brodo, Grana Padano and even slow-roast donkey; and of course wine.
A phrase synonymous with this region is “Bacchus amat colles” - Bacchus loves the hills, a Latin reference to the Colli Piacentini where wonderful wines are conceived. It is here that you will find a campus of l’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, which hosts a world-class Viticulture and Enology department fronted by the enigmatic Prof. Stefano Poni.
In August 2020 the journey towards Alma Alquimista began in the Piacentini restaurant La Pireina when Sofia was finally released from her Covid quarantine following her arrival in Italy to study wine making. It was here, with several bottles of Gutturnio, that Sofia and Tommy first met and ideas began to flow.
Our initial concepts revolved around the creation of a vineyard in Italy - after so many glorious days spent sampling the delights of Italian life perhaps you can see why… It soon became apparent that there were other exciting opportunities in the world, opportunities which allowed us to express our guiding philosophies and provide a blank canvas. As such we devised a plan to develop wines and spirits in Mexico, a country brimming with vibrancy and one which could foster our creative ambitions!
Tommy and Sofia in Castell’Arquato - 3rd October 2020
In May of 2021 while at Sofia’s apartment the two of us hatched a plan to set up this company, using a mirror and whiteboard pen (with Multichem ink!) as the blank canvas. We dreamed of plans to make wines in Mexico and aimed to play a part in the rapid development of wines and spirits in this wonderful country.
In August 2021 the plan turned reality as Tommy found himself in Guadalajara meeting up with Sofia to begin the first step towards Alma Alquimista. The initial project scope was to assess whether or not we had the capabilities to make wine on a professional scale and, as importantly, to a sufficient quality while learning from all of our mistakes on the way - and boy was there a lot of learning!
We sourced Malbec and Syrah grapes from Aguascalientes and on 17th August we took part in our first Mexican harvest. Sadly our Syrah didn’t make it as there was a leak in the water jacket of the fermentation vessel, but our much larger Malbec progressed nicely. By the time that we had barrelled the Malbec some 3 week later one thing was for certain: we were now confident that we could make wines on a large-scale and to a good quality.
With the last of the bunches crushed into the tank we could relax after a job well done!
While we were waiting for the Malbec to mature in our cellar something became abundantly apparent to us - making wine meant that we’d spend large chunks of the year with little to do but wait for the wine to be ready. So we cast about for other ideas as to what we could keep ourselves entertained with in the meantime.
[Enter Tequila]
Though it sounds stupid we didn’t consider making Tequila at first, in spite of our winery being based in the heartlands of Tequila production. Indeed Sofia herself has a lot of experience within the Tequila industry both due to having worked in it, and by-proxy as her dad is a master Tequilero! One thing we didn’t want to do was to make Tequila for the sake of it, so from here we began to formulate plans to take the spirit back to its roots and create the world’s best and most pure Tequila.
The moment that the steam was turned on for our first distillation - 21st June 2022
Bring on the harvest 2022, a year which saw us growing considerably from the initial 6.5T of grapes to over 25T! Such a growth required us to bring in some serious new equipment including a new 10T tank, which Sofia nearly got stuck in after excitedly entering. The wines which resulted from the 2022 harvest included: our first orange wine - the famed appassimento Muscat Blanc, our first dark rosé from Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. For the first time things were beginning to feel serious.
We felt even more professional when using our Italian crafted basket press for the first time. This timeless item was so satisfying to see in action and something which instantly adds beauty and an authenticity to the winemaking process. The harvest period lasted up until early November with the last wine being barrelled around then, all in all we had 70 barrels of wine!
We also added a new member to our team: Isabel. After wandering on site as a puppy earlier that year we decided to adopt her the same day that Elizabeth II passed away - hence the Latinised name.
21st March 2023 and what would normally be a dull day turned out to be one of the best birthdays for Tommy that he could have wished for. Alma Alquimista hosted its first tasting with a sommelier, merchant, influencer and all round wine enthusiast (who we cannot name). He revealed to us that not only was his mind blown that there was a functional winery operating out of Tequila-country, but that the wines were top quality and something which genuinely excited him - we made our first fan!
From here we had the confidence to expand our operation and began to plan for a near doubling of production for the 2023 harvest going from 27T to 47T. Such a growth also required us to invest in additional tanks and equipment including: 7 tanks, a brand-new crusher destemmer, 50 more barrels and two new manual corkers. We also welcomed our first employee, Olek who travelled all the way from the home of orange wines, Georgia, to help us out on our expanding business.
July 2023 was a very busy month as the arrival of Olek coincided with the completion of the purpose built Fruittaio and the beginnings of the bottling of our first red wine - Tempranillo! The Fruittaio completion should not be overlooked as this signaled our intent to focus on fringe styles of wines - in particular those involving appassimento. This decision was taken at the behest of Eduardo who believed our Muscat Blanc appassimento to be one of the best he’d tasted as well as quite possibly the first orange appassimento in existence - if not the first.
The construction of Fruittaio permitted the second vintage of the Muscat Blanc to be scaled up, as well as helping us to make our first passito. Though the innovations did not stop in the Fruittaio itself, with large scale trials of natural wines also something which was explored using several grape varieties as we looked to conquer what Sofia considers the toughest form of winemaking.
In all the harvest lasted until mid November again with the final wines being barrelled, finally allowing all involved to decompress following an extremely intense harvest period indeed!
