2018 PerSe La Craie Gualtallary Mendoza

The 2018 La Craie is from poorer soils that are very shallow in their PerSe vineyard in Gualtallary, from a plot next to Iubileus where the soils are whiter and shallower, the last plot to be picked. It's a co-fermentation of Malbec and Cabernet Franc (a little less than in 2017) that fermented in open-top oak barrels with indigenous yeasts for 40 days with gentle daily pigeage. I tasted this wine from barrel some 16 months ago, and it was already very promising. And all those promises (and more!) made it into the bottle while at the same time doubling the quantity of wine produced. 2017 was very low yielding, but 2018 was more balanced, the vines are one year older; the vines are still extremely young, and the wine is already amazing, no doubt because of the place rather than the plants. It combines power and elegance in a rare balance—intense, deep, powerful and fresh, somewhat ethereal but with weight (think of a velvet bag filled with chalk), very pure aromas, including wet limestone, from the shallower soils and richer in calcium carbonate, sensations that are found on the nose and also on the palate. There is precision, delineation, purity and symmetry here. All of the wines ferment without stems, yet the wine has a gobsmacking sense of freshness. The texture of the tannins is ultra fine, chalky but almost powdery, finer than those from Iubileus but with grip, not as gentle as those from Inseparable and also more profound than the Uní. Perfect ripeness, perfect balance, perfect extraction, perfect élevage... complex, nuanced and layered. As it happens in wines like this, I only wish I had a magnum rather than a bottle. Bravo!

Planted as recently as 2014, the La Craie parcel contains 70% Malbec and 30% Cabernet Franc, which are co-fermented to produce this refined, reticent, effortlessly complex red. Showing green herb flavours that you can actually taste in the berries, it's firm and serious yet somehow graceful and ethereal at the same time. 2024-30.