vinoconosur

• succinct/unbiased scrutiny of primarily Argentine wine and its offshoots • based in Buenos Aires • rated on 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 scale with or without relevant suffix(es)

[vinoconosur]

Gualtallary 2013

Gen del Alma Otra Piel 2013

In contrast to Europe, the weather in Mendoza usually doesn’t swing to extremes, yielding generally consistent wines across vintages.  But a handful of minimal intervention wines from the 2013 harvest in Gualtallary are markedly superior to adjacent years...and this is one of them.

Regardless of harvest, the line that comes out of Gen del Alma offers one of the few examples from Argentina that has any relation to the natural wine “movements” in France, Italy, the U.S., etc.:  Young, fresh fruit with complexity and brisk finishes.

The 2013 Otra Piel from Gen del Alma (60% Cabernet Franc, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Pinot Noir), has a nose of bright fresh fruit concentrate.  Blackberries, cheap grape jelly, ripe figs and a dry finish but not overwhelmingly so.  No oak here as it’s fermented in a concrete egg.

The 2014 pales in comparison, lacks the balance of the 2013 and is just not that interesting...and the extent of the variation between the two leads me to believe that the difference is not a matter age and more time in bottle.

It’s not the kind of wine to have with a full meal.  Think sheep’s cheese with basil or mint...or anything that you would pair with membrillo.

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[vinoconosur]

not worth the wait

Esperando a los Bárbaros Malbec 2015

This wine just landed in Buenos Aires about a week and half ago and I was honestly waiting for it.  Poking vinoteca owners in the eye:  WhereTF is it?

The pre-release face value piqued my interest: a fresh, young Malbec coming from calcareous soil in Gualtallary, from Passionate Wine/Matías Michelini and at a reasonable 200 peso price point. 

So when I was at an unrelated tasting, had a credit at the place and saw the bottle on the shelf, it was instantly sold.  The first bottle was consumed at a San Paolo Pizza--new and owned by a guy legit from Napoli.  Solid.

The wine.

Clearly a Malbec with a deep ruby and violet color in the glass.

Almost nothing on the nose except for acidity.

The taste is overtly flat and bone dry via acidity on the finish.

Mirá…200 pesos is not a lot for a bottle of wine, but this one should be closer to 120 for the quality.  The label is “cool,” (meaning it will probably sell well) and the color is gorgeous but the pleasant optical elements don’t coalesce with what is in the glass…an overpriced daily wine.

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[vinoconosur]

limited edition failure 🐸💸

Frog Malbec 2014

I was once the proud owner of one out of six-hundred bottles of this crispy-new Malbec.  Then I consumed it and it started to chip away at my already crumbling zeal for freshly minted, “limited edition” anything.  A quintessential example of when a partida limitada ends up being overpriced bullshit.

Sure, in an absolute sense it’s not that expensive.  But the current list price is 330 pesos (about $22 USD) when this should be trading at its fair market equivalent:  a €4 bottle of vino da tavola from wherever the fuck in Italy.

The result of a project between an ex-basketball player and the guy from Bodega del Tupun.  Glad I could support the wine equivalent of going for a slam dunk, bouncing the ball off the backboard directly into your face and breaking your wrist on the rim.

Basic, chewy, basic, rustic, unbalanced, basic, soupy and slightly effervescent in a very Michelini way.  Not a real shock given that Matías Michelini is a consultant for Tupun.

Recommended pairing:  vinoteca shelf.

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[vinoconosur]

🍷🍷🍷🍋

When it's 11pm, 77 degrees fahrenheit, has been a furnace all day and you just got decent takeout sushi, what else can you pair but a 7 year old Chardonnay?

A total surpise. Nose of mainly grilled lemon with a dab of butter and a mouth of, again, grilled lemon soaking into dry wood. Priceless (but costs 270 pesos).

[vinoconosur]

one out of two out of three

Calcáreo Río de Los Chacayes and Granito de Gualtallary

While the idea of releasing a few similarly produced wines from different sub-regions to demonstrate the subtleties of terroir is intriguing, how it plays out is usually less so.

Like the Zuccardi Poliginos “box set” of three Malbecs from the Uco Valley:  all bland and flat except for the one from San Pablo that was only relatively better.  Micro-relative versus the other two.

Maybe one day I’ll try the Calcáreo Coluvio de Altamira, but for now I’m good with the Río de Los Chacayes and the Granito de Gualtallary.  Both express something different in terms of what wine can offer and are markedly distinct from each other.  Meaning one is bad and one is good.

Granito is perfect for someone that wants to try a very interesting wine for the sake of it being interesting; irrespective of whether or not the wine is actually decent.  I’m not sure what else you do with a glass full of liquid that is a perfect substitute for licking a freshly cracked rock followed by gnawing on a handful of paper clips and loose change.  Salty, chalky, dry, metallic and that’s it.  For 480-ish pesos.  Next.

🍷🍷👅 🜘

Ok.  Much better.

Not much on the nose of the Río de Los Chacayes, but initially has the flavor of uber-fresh red berries and sweet wet stone.  After a couple minutes, it evolves into pure unsweetened cranberry juice with loads of fresh acidity although with only slight sourness and the addition of a little bit of mora.  480-ish pesos and worth it.

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[vinoconosur]

truly bacán

Bacán Sauvignon Blanc Reserva 2013 

Given the option, I would rather force-fit a Frappato, Pinot Noir, Cannonau or at worst an “orange wine” with a meal traditionally and potentially better-paired with a white.  Of course there are exceptions, but it is rarely preferred.

It does however have its place in a limited way: a crystallizing Vinho Verde that can literally quench thirst on hot day, a cold beer replacement with some sort of simple seafood preparation on the beach, a chardonnay/pinot grigio blend inserted into a spray bottle to discipline your cat or when you’re in Turkey and the red is pure filth. 

While there are a few Argentine vino blancos (e.g., Montesco - Agua de Roca, Mayol - Garnacha Blanca, (surprisingly) Luigi Bosca - Riesling, among others) that are solid go-to’s, the 100% Sauvignon Blanc Bacán Reserva is clearly distinct...and preferable...and my favorite Argentine white (p.s., I refuse to buy the Catena White Bones/Soil/Balls/whatever Chardonnay due its >2000 peso price tag). 

Anyway. 

The Bacán takes a minute.  The ammonia/alcohol on the nose of the first glass clears out your sinuses and makes your eyes water like a tablespoon of Chinese hot mustard. 

If I let it breathe like a reasonable person would, it would (and did) evolve into an elegant and feminine mosaic of low-sugar fruits: cucumber, honeydew melon, kiwi, cherimoya and guanábana.  The waft of a truly cleansing sorbet. 

Somewhat thick, lusciously coating texture with very minor acidity in the mouth. But what little acidity there is manifests as a smooth pineapple flavor that is almost entirely diluted with cucumber.  Licentious.

Worth every peso @ 390 but relative to Argentine white wines it ain’t cheap.  But the quality price ratio for a white is better than almost anything else here.  

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍈🍍 

tech sheet

Some other labels (non-exhaustive) from Italian winemaker Giuseppe Franceschini: 

Entrelineas - Viognier, Malbec and Syrah

6.962 - Pinot Noir (💣), Primitivo, Agliánico and Torrontés (un regalo for around 100 pesos)

Bodega Caelum - the Fiano = 🔝