2019 Malbec Nicasia

Single vineyard at 1,100 m asl, planted from old-vine massal selection in Alta Mira in 1996. Laura Catena tells us that the vineyards is 'shallow soils and rocks and rocks and rocks and rocks. You have to pull some of the rocks out. These are some gigantic stones and we use them to make borders – not neat stone walls! No! Non-symmetric, not even a wall, just lying there.' The yields are naturally very low, there is no disease pressure, just very occasionally a little bit of frost. Her grandfather’s favourite place. His secret to winemaking, Catena tells us, was that as long as he could add a chunk of grapes from this vineyard, then the worst wine could be fixed. ‘Add Nicasia fruit. That’s it! You fix anything!’ The vineyard is much further south, so a lot cooler than may other Mendoza vineyards. Whole-bunch fermentation. Smells purple! Then blue. A wine that seems to slowly turn in the mouth, catching light and shadows: Tyrian purple, then indigo, lapis lazuli, ruby, garnet. A little balsamic, pomegranate molasses, allspice. A wine that has an inner radiance, which suffuses through the slow, savoury-spice swirls of its inner structure, like the glow of candlelight on a highly polished, old-wood mahogany table. Tannins that feel like the ancient curves of old vines, deeply grooved, powerfully still, yet flowing seamlessly from deep earth to sky and back again. Changes from purple to blue to red; in the glass, in the mouth: iridescent. (TC)