CATENA ALTA HISTORIC ROWS CHARDONNAY

Description

Catena Zapata is the oldest Argentine family winery still in family hands, with a wealth of old ungrafted vines, and massale selections of Cabernet and Malbec that no longer exist in the old world. Nicolás Catena Zapata planted the Adrianna vineyard in Gualtallary with a single goal in mind: to find the coolest location for growing vines in Mendoza. Over the next few years the wines consistently proved to have more minerality and more acidity than wines from other sites in the Southern Uco Valley at lower altitudes. Wines at such altitudes of course benefit from cooling effects, but with that much more UV exposure over a growing season will still lead to very phenolically-developed fruit – which is to say the wines can manage to be fresh and heavy at the same time.

For the vinification, whole clusters were pressed, and then fermented in 500 L French oak barrels with natural yeasts at lower temperatures to preserve aromatics. Fermentation lasted between 12-24 days, followed by varying levels of battonage (lees stirring). 30% of the wine does not undergo malolactic conversion to keep the wine from becomming too buttery. It is bottled after 14 months of aging in a combination of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd use barrels.

This wine is an “old school” monster. Not to be confused with a modern style highly manipulated Californian Chardonnay. It’s big yes, and the oak profile isn’t shy, but it hasn’t lost itself completely to the oakiness or buttery feel. In fact, the “buttery” diactyl is really quite minimal, instead being driven by a pastry-esque note from the batonnage and yeast autolysis. Along with it, it shows its limestone minerality prominently, and smatterings of stone fruits and citrus.