2014 La Craie

The 2014 La Craie represents the chalky character of a limestone-rich vineyard in Gualtallary at 1,300 meters altitude planted some ten years ago. This is sourced from the cooler parts of the vineyard where you find boulders covered in chalk. The Malbec and Cabernet Franc grapes are fermented together in open top used French oak barrels with indigenous yeasts and with a soft daily pigeage for some 35 days. The Cabernet Franc represented around 20% of the volume. The nose here is the most elegant of all the siblings, insinuating, whispering, a little closed at first, slowly developing, mixing earth, violets, wet chalk, some spices... This is always the most austere wine here. It matured in oak barrels for 16 months before it was bottled unfiltered and unfined. It can often seem somehow backward and austere, and it needs coaxing to open up, but the palate is always the finest, most elegant of them all, with a sophisticated texture, laced with a fine thread of acidity going through the core. This is elegant as very few wines in Argentina are. Harmony and elegance, fine minerality, length and persistence define this amazing wine. Simply amazing. I had the chance to taste it next to the 2013, and I concluded that this is slightly above. The bad news is that only 552 bottles were produced in 2014.