2018 Catena Zapata Nicolás Catena Zapata

Tasted from a 10-cl tube. 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Malbec. Notes taken from their tech sheet: ‘“El Año Mendocino,” the Mendoza Year we call it. After a small cool vintage 2017, which we call “El Año Bordelés” (the Bordeaux Year) and a small, very cool and rainy year in 2016 “El Año Bourguignon” (the Burgundian year), we finally got a vintage that is classically Mendozan: dry, cool, sunny and with moderate yields in every region from the lowest to the highest altitudes. The summer of 2017 started out warm but then cooled off during the 2018 harvest months of February, March and April. This, in addition to the lower rainfall, gave rise to optimal balance in the fruit, with beautiful natural acidity, regional aromatic expression and smooth tannins. The harvest is done by hand, and some parcels are fermented as whole bunches to enhance tannic structure and freshness. The fermentation takes place in 500 liter oak barrels, concrete and stainless-steel tanks, at temperatures of 26–28 °C for about 10–15 days. The post-fermentative maceration lasts between 5 and 10 days. The wine carries out its malolactic fermentation and is then aged in French oak barrels for 18 months.’ 5,200 cases produced. Wine director: Alejandro Vigil. Winemaker: Fernando Buscema. Laura Catena says that the wines from 2018 are more generous. Strikingly different from the 2016 of the same wine tasted alongside. Darker, cloves, more spice, more power. Bay leaf. Wood bark and meat. A trace of cooked mulberry, dried woodland fruit, biltong. The structure of the wine feels marble-stone rectangular, Pantheonic in its power and geometric, foursquare, foundational magnificence and impressiveness. The kind of wine that has me looking up, and up, in awe. Their notes say the ideal drinking window is 2040 to 2048, but without that kind of ageing reference point, I'm going to be much more conservative in my estimate. (TC)