Three more from down under, including one from bizarro world

O

Oswaldo Costa

Oswaldo Costa
2000 Weinert Malbec Reserva Mendoza 13.5%
100% Malbec. Blackberries, coffee, a touch of rubber and tar. Pleasant acidity, refined tannins, in perfect balance with the attractive fruit. Delicious, and proof positive that Argentina can make fine traditional style wines. This one dates from before Weinert went over to the ripe side. Since almost nobody in Argentina (or Brazil) wants such wines anymore, it costs a third of the price of its velvety supplanters, with their hefty tonnellerie bills to amortize. If you find any prelapsarian Weinert in the forlorn southwestern corner of your wine shop, give it a try.

2007 Los Ecologicos Malbec Uruguay 11.4%
I was intrigued with this inexpensive Uruguayan Malbec that claims to be organic and sports only 11.4% alcohol. Cowabunga! When I got home and studied the label, I noticed, alongside the organic certifications, one from a juvenile diabetes association. Suddenly I was afraid that I had picked up something akin to sugar-free beer, but examination of the website www.losecologicosltda.com revealed that this is vinified completely dry, somehow, so that there is no residual sugar [as for alcohol being itself a complex sugar, Marcia explained to me that insulin is not roused by it in the same manner that it is by less complex sugars]. The site says that they themselves dont understand how the local yeasts manage this feat, but the absence is supposedly lab certified. The taste, alas, while not horrendous, was below the threshold of gourmet acceptability, but I mention its existence in case anyone has diabetic friends or relatives who miss their wine and are willing to compromise on flavor. There is some sweetness in the taste, and I wonder if alcohol, alone, can provide enough of that sensation, or they added some artificial sweetener, who knows.

2006 Polkura Syrah Colchagua Valley 14.8%
92% Syrah, 4% Malbec, 2% Viognier, 2% Tempranillo/Mourvdre/Grenache Noir. Cold soaked, inoculated, and fed. Ripe blackberry and plum, with cocoa and rubber. Has that slightly rancid, mildly putrid aroma that some very ripe wines exhibit. A bit hot, but not too oaky, with good mouth weight. The acid/sweet balance is adequate, but the acidity tastes somewhat separate. Not the worst of its kind, but still no cigar.

So, have I learned anything from the above, besides the existence of sugar-free wine? The Weinert seems to prove that its possible to make, in high altitude desert climates, the kind of wine I like. So why is almost everybody in Chile and Argentina making wine from super ripe grapes? Is that simply their taste? Is it for the $$$, because thats the contemporary taste? Or is the terroir somewhat deterministic, Weinert notwithstanding, forcing them to super mature to avoid immature tannins? Or is it wrongheaded to treat them homogeneously, as if the local variations didnt matter, being trumped by the greater common denominator of high altitude/desert/irrigation, etc.? Maybe only a visit will resolve these doubts, but I am loath to wade through so much purple ink to satisfy a purely intellectual curiosity. Damn, I hate to leave this open.
 
When did Weinart lapse? I used to like their wines a lot when we saw them here in the 90s. I don't see them so much so I haven't seen recent vintages.
 
I was going to ask the same question! I visited Weinert last year and thought all their wines were quite classic. It was fun to see all those huge barrels instead of the usual new small barriques.
One thing though is I don't count how many corked Weinert I had...incredible.
 
Opinions are divided in the wine blogging/forum world here in Brazil. Some say Weinert began to change circa 2002, when all the big scores started coming out for modern Argentine wines. But they didn't have the capital to do so "properly" (i.e. thousands of new French barrels, etc.), so it has been done somewhat half-assedly. I wish our Argentine lurkers (and you know who you are!) would jump in with the correct information.
 
Sorry to hear that the Polkura was better on the website than in the glass. I once had a Ford Escort that sounded amazing in the car magazines and was even pretty good on the test drive but didn't exactly shine over the long term.

I tasted some wines yesterday from an Argentine producer called Mendel and found them quite intriguing and unspoofed. The winemaker is Roberto de la Mota, whose father was the winemaker at Bodegas Weinert for a lot of years so perhaps that aesthetic was passed along between the generations. Mendel's vineyard is about 80 years old and de la Mota doesn't allow his winemaking to get in the way of the fruit. Both of the wines I tasted (one a 100% Malbec and the other a 70/30 blend of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon called "Unis") were much more savory than sweet, with French oak present but unobtrusive in terms of both wines' overall balance. The only real fault was that both wines appeared to be overly tannic,seemingly with way too much structure compared to the fruit. However, retasting the 2007 Malbec this morning, the tannins have come into balance with the fruit and the wine has this very black-fruity overtone to it, strikingly similar to the really dark-colored meaty/beety (but not big and bouncy)candy in the UK wine gum rolls. It's a flavor you either love or you hate, but it works really well with the Mendel Malbec.

-Eden (the beat goes on)
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Three more from down under, including one from bizarro world2000 Weinert Malbec Reserva Mendoza 13.5%
100% Malbec. Blackberries, coffee, a touch of rubber and tar. Pleasant acidity, refined tannins, in perfect balance with the attractive fruit. Delicious, and proof positive that Argentina can make fine traditional style wines. This one dates from before Weinert went over to the ripe side. Since almost nobody in Argentina (or Brazil) wants such wines anymore, it costs a third of the price of its velvety supplanters, with their hefty tonnellerie bills to amortize. If you find any prelapsarian Weinert in the forlorn southwestern corner of your wine shop, give it a try.
Click to expand...

I had a '96 Weinert Cab back in June (US $12, from the bodega on the corner) that was (shockingly, given the providence) pretty awesome. I'm fairly sure they were sold/changed management in '97 or '98, but I don't know when exactly winemaking practices might have changed.

Perhaps the thing to remember with this is that regardless of how much they push phenolic, and oak the crap out of a wine, you still can't avoid the fact that most of Mendoza is at 3500 + feet, and so acid balance is always going to be pretty good due to the cool nights.
 
originally posted by Morgan Harris:
Perhaps the thing to remember with this is that regardless of how much they push phenolic, and oak the crap out of a wine, you still can't avoid the fact that most of Mendoza is at 3500 + feet, and so acid balance is always going to be pretty good due to the cool nights.
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My understanding is that the cool nights help, but aren't enough when the sizzling desert sun matures the grapes too fast. Supermaturity comes, among other things, at the expense of (malic?) acidity, so the general tendency in the Andes is to acidify the musts.

Eden, one of the owners of Mendel is a friend of a friend and called me a few months ago. I got the sense, over the phone, that they were basically industrial minded, so didn't even invite her for a drink (though she mentioned the Weinert connection when I lamented the general move away from the traditional style). Now I regret my (increasing) geeky snobbishness.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Eden, one of the owners of Mendel is a friend of a friend and called me a few months ago. I got the sense, over the phone, that they were basically industrial minded, so didn't even invite her for a drink (though she mentioned the Weinert connection when I lamented the general move away from the traditional style). Now I regret my (increasing) geeky snobbishness.
Click to expand...

My suspicion is that de la Mota can do industrial with the best of 'em, but in this case I don't taste it. Maybe my tastebuds have been hammered into submission by repeated blind tastings of plonk, but assuming you can make the leap of belief to recalibrate your palate to what unspoofed Malbec should taste like, this might be within your window of drinkability. Think Carmelo Patti with some financial backing and no VA issues you'll be in the ballpark.

-Eden (and you should meet Annabelle some time - she strikes me as being quite into it, not quite in the dominate-the-world sort of way but more to create a benchmark Argentine label)
 
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