Since 2005 I have been making wines in San Rafael. What started as a hobby ended up becoming my main task over the years: blood drawn wines that don't like to be handled, the attempt to put a piece of truth inside a bottle. The idea crosses my mind that before the Second World War, agriculture could be done without chemicals and that wines could too. Hence, part of the journey is to deny modern technique and recover the old ways of doing things. A search that goes through finding the most frank path between the earth and the drinkers, clearing it as much as possible of interference. That is why the wines are made with minimal touching, because they confessed that they do not like being walked on and in Las Payas territory the wines rule and the Guainmeiquer obeys. And I am guided by the transparency of telling drinkers everything I do in my wines and, consequently, doing only what I say. Between those first dubious bottles from 2005 in the old shed on the farm and those from now, a lot of wine has flowed down our river. Everyone is invited to uncork and swim against the current. Santiago Salgado is the intellectual and material author of these illicit bottled. From scrubbing the floors to versing over the overripe blackcurrant aroma of Bonarda, he does it all. A multifaceted one man band. From foreman to CEO of the winery and everything in between. Born in Buenos Aires, he received a bachelor's degree from the San Isidro Nacional (1984) and a Bachelor's degree in Cs. of Communication – UBA (1989). He set up with some friends the trout FM “El Bulo de Merlín” in the back of his house (1987) and dedicated himself to the radio for a few years. In 1990, he reopened an abandoned neighborhood theater (Stella Maris de San Isidro) and set up a performing arts school and a production company for children's shows in English (The Flywalk Group / The Group Entertainment Co.) Soothed by the 2001 crisis and overwhelmed by the metaphors of “Matrix” and “Pollitos en fuga” he flees Buenos Aires with his family in search of a better place to live and raise his daughters. This is how they landed in San Rafael at the beginning of 2004 with the idea of being able to live off the land, on a farm, at a less frenetic pace than that imparted by the big city. Combining his pleasure for manual work and the bunches that matured at the bottom of the farm, the Finca las Payas project emerged in 2005. For several years he has been one subject away from graduating as a University Technician in Oenology and Viticulture at UNCuyo, which is already difficult to happen.