Don’t be surprised that the malbec-cabernet franc blend Trapiche Malbec Cabernet Franc Mendoza Iscay 2017 came out ahead of all the other 1,800 wines we tasted from Argentina this year. The quality of this Mendoza winery’s premium bottling has been incredibly consistent year after year, with each vintage scoring 95 points and above over the last decade. We decided to push it to center stage this year, with its sublime quality and superb value (about $50 bottle) showcasing everything that is right with Argentine wines.
This deep, tight and textured red with spicy fruit and an herbal lift rightfully explains how the melange of malbec and cabernet franc has become so popular in the high-altitude vineyards of Mendoza. Intuitively, malbec unleashes color and flesh, and cabernet franc knits the rich components with fibrous tension and savory character.
Scroll down the list below to see Mendoza’s success with the grape duo, including Abremundos Mendoza Octava Alta Blend 2017 (No. 16), a joint project by Marcelo Pelleriti and the Argentine musician Pedro Aznar; Michelini i Mufatto Tupungato GY 2019 (No. 28); Susana Balbo’s BenMarco Valle de Uco Gualtallary Expresivo 2019 (No. 52) and Matias Riccitelli Malbec Cabernet Franc Mendoza Riccitelli & Father 2018 (No. 55).
One of our favorite whites in the world comes from the Catena family, in the Andean foothills of Mendoza. The Catena Zapata Chardonnay Mendoza Adrianna Vineyard White Bones 2019 is the No. 2 wine on this Top 100 list.
It is a genuinely unique and terroir-transparent chardonnay that rivals the best from Burgundy, expressing an exotically ripe yet mineral character with a sensual texture, as if transmitting the tangy energy of the chalky, calcareous soils rich in marine deposits to the nose and the palate. A thin layer of flor, or yeast, also adds a unique saline smack to the wine during the aging process.
READ MORE: OUR TOP 100 WINES OF 2021
Catena winemaker Alejandro Vigil told us that Catena has been studying the terroir closely for 25 years in their Grand Cru-like Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary, seeking the unique expression of each block for their malbecs and chardonnays. One of their top malbecs, Catena Zapata Malbec Mendoza Adrianna Vineyard Fortuna Terrae 2019, ranks No. 6 on our list, with its fruit coming from a five-hectare Fortuna Terrae (“Land of Luck”) parcel, where deeper alluvial and aeolian soil tops the limestone and rocks, rendering depth and freshness to the fruit. Around 60 percent of whole-cluster fermentation also helps add a tactile seduction to the wine.
While malbec continues to rule the world of Argentine reds, the country has come a long way in making wines showing subtle nuances among different appellations, vineyards or even smaller blocks. Judicious winemakers also thrust refinement, delicate austerity and layers into the limelight, with many of them referring to it as the “Burgundy approach” to malbec – something feasible in cooler, higher appellations like Gualtallary, where making fine wine is only viable in a climate barely warm enough to fully ripen the grapes.
“The soil in Gualtallary doesn’t want to make heavy malbec,” Santiago Achaval of Matervini said during a zoom call interview this year. “Instead, it makes silky, cherry-driven malbec… [and] if the soil is suited to darker, denser malbec, we will also go with it, and the result will be good.”
MORE FROM MALBEC
Achaval has good reason to believe that there is still more to come from malbec in his country. His Matervini Malbec Mendoza El Challao-Las Heras Piedras Viejas 2019 (No. 11), for example, comes from El Challao of Las Heras, which is a new hillside area near Mendoza city where vines thrive on the ancient, colluvial soils rich in limestone and weathered basalt. Despite a tiny volume of production, it’s a wine that shows real character with unfathomable depth, intensity and austere minerality.
Other than Catena Zapata and Matervini, all our top malbecs this year are illustrations of various terroirs that have stood out in Mendoza. Susana Balbo Wines Malbec Agrelo Nosotros Single Vineyard Nómade 2017 (No. 3) is a stunning red from Agrelo of Lujan de Cuyo highlighted by its precision, ultra-fine tannins and energy. Zuccardi Malbec Valle de Uco Paraje Altamira Finca Piedra Infinita 2018 (No. 4) speaks the same language as Zuccardi’s other offerings and is consistently a cerebral malbec showing depth, layers, precision and polish.
Viña Cobos Malbec Los Arboles Valle de Uco Chañares Estate 2018 (No. 8) shows how Paul Hobbs and winemaker Andres Vignoni fine-tune their wines with more linearity and definition with their new vineyard in Los Arboles. “We are trying to make leaner wines, not as overpowering but at the same time very focused and working a lot in layers and length,” Vignoni said during a Zoom tasting earlier this year.
Our No. 2 Argentine wine, the Catena Zapata Chardonnay Mendoza Adrianna Vineyard White Bones 2019 is a genuinely unique and terroir-transparent chardonnay. (Photos by JamesSuckling.com)
These wines all prove the point that Argentina is extremely serious about its iconic grape variety. Now that there is a broader spectrum of styles and terroir-expressive wines, malbec will continue to boom. The top players already make world-class wines, comparable with the finest reds from the rest of the world, and the increasing demand has been pushing up the price of malbecs, too.
That said, we feel that great value is still the calling card for Argentine wines, especially in such varieties as pinot noir, cabernet franc, semillon and the zesty and perfumed torrontes. It’s why we put Chacra Pinot Noir Patagonia Cincuenta y Cinco 2020 in fifth place, given its soulful perfumes, tension, length and subtle complexity. Planted in 1955, we believe it is one of the best bottlings of this wine from Chacra’s Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, who uses biodynamic farming in his vineyard and makes wine in a natural, non-interventionist way, as if, in his words, he was “making tea.”
ARGENTINA TASTING TRIP: In this video from 2020, James and the JamesSuckling.com Tasting Team sample hundreds of quality wines, from Buenos Aires to Mendoza.
There are 11 white wines on the list this year, including three semillons. As in Chile, we have also noticed a comeback of semillon in Argentina, thanks to a few dedicated producers such as El Enemigo, Matias Riccitelli, Mendel and Michelini i Mufatto. In ninth place on our list is El Enemigo Semillon Mendoza 2019, one of Argentina’s best whites and top value picks this year, retailing at around $20 a bottle.
The 1,800 wines from Argentina we tasted this year made us recall our wonderful trip to the Andes almost two years ago. It was our last international trip before the world was locked down because of the pandemic. While we don’t know when we’ll be able to travel again, what we do know is that there are always wines in Argentina that make us feel lucky to be living in a world with oodles of great choices.
We hope you enjoy exploring the list and end up uncorking high-quality, terroir-transparent wines that are also great deals.
– Zekun Shuai, Associate Editor
The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2021 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
