Wine & Spirits - Winter 2020 - 74

Top 100 Wineries

NE W WO R LD

Bodegas Weinert

Zuccardi Valle de Uco

ARGENTINA | MENDOZA
Weinert's malbecs are like no others in Argentina, deﬁned by
complex ﬂavors developed through long aging.

ARGENTINA | MENDOZA
Sebastián Zuccardi has opened a new chapter in Argentine
malbec with his Uco Valley project.

HUBERT WEBER

BRAZILIAN BUSINESSMAN BERNARD WEINERT
founded his winery in 1975, purchasing a dilapidated 19th-century cellar and hiring winemaker
Raúl de la Mota to help him rejuvenate it. Two
years later, they released the ﬁrst Estrella, a complex, elegant barrel-aged malbec that catapulted
the winery to fame. Hubert Weber took over
from de la Mota in 1997, and has been steadfast in retaining the house style: fermentations
in open-topped cement tanks and long aging
in large, old casks-the largest dating to 1920
and currently ﬁlled with 44,000 liters of 2012
malbec. The barrels, kept in a cool, dark warren
of underground cellars, are key to the Weinert
style-even the youngest wines, bottled under
the Carrascal label, age in oak for at least 18
months-and Weber treats them so that they'll
last, cleaning them thoroughly between uses so
that the wines never have that old-wood ﬂavor.
-T.Q.T.

SEBASTIAN
ZUCCARDI

1994 Mendoza Estrella Malbec ($240, 96 points)
After 16 years of barrel aging, this 1994 shows the
complex side of Mendoza's malbec. This might be the
vinous equivalent of the tango, a sense of nostalgia
in its nutty, leafy, caramel-hued fruit carried with elegance, energy and verve.

FOUNDED:

1975
OWNERS:

The Weinert
family
WINEMAKER:

Hubert Weber
VITICULTURIST:

Francisco
Escudero

2019 Paraje Altamira Polígonos del Valle de Uco
Paraje Altamira Malbec ($29, 94 points) "We cannot isolate the effect of the soil from the surrounding
environment," he tells me, "but what we ﬁnd, after
ten years of research and thousands of microviniﬁcations, is that calcareous, stony soils give the wine
a special texture." He describes it as "more vertical
and elegant," with a delicacy easily lost through overripening or overworking in the winery. You can taste
what he means in this wine, from a parcel rich in calcium carbonate at 3,600 feet in altitude. The wine is
complex and transparent, malbec slimmed down and
ﬁrmed up, its typical blackberry ﬂavors transmitting a
sense of cool in their ﬁr-tree aromas.

1994 Mendoza Tonel Unico No. 111 Malbec
($124, 95, points) Of the four casks of 1994 malbec
de la Mota held back for long aging, the 5,800 liters
in cask #111 was still tight and nervy when Weber
selected two others to bottle as Estrella. He waited
another seven years to bottle this wine, and it is still
beeﬁer, woodier and more tannic than the Estrella
1994. But give it time in the glass, and the fruit wells
up, sweet and plummy, framed by notes of cigar
smoke, meat stock and leather, a sumptuous take on
aged malbec.
2010 Mendoza Malbec ($30, 91 points) For a fraction of the price of Weinert's top wines, you can get a
taste of the winery's style in this basic bottling. Handpicked, fermented in lined cement tanks and aged in
large oak casks for more than three years, it's graceful and reserved, with an earthy minerality framing its
red-berry ﬂavors.

ASK SEBASTIAN ZUCCARDI ABOUT THE STONES that
gave rise to Pietras Inﬁnitas, his Uco Valley winery, and his eyes light up. No matter that he
needed to haul away more than 1,000 truckloads
of those "inﬁnite stones" to build it. The stony
soil, he says, is just as important as the altitude
in his quest to create fresh wines. Like his father,
José Alberto Zuccardi, who organized an extensive R&D department at one of the country's
most forward-looking wineries, Sebastián started
his own experiments in 2005, pockmarking the
Uco Valley with soil pits, weather stations and
experimental plantings. He now has 464 acres of
vines spread across six vineyards, each mapped
by soil type and depth, altitude and exposure.
In the winery, opened in 2016, the stone theme
continues, from the building's walls to the
cement viniﬁcation tanks. There are no barriques, no commercial yeasts-nothing to get in
the way of transmitting Uco Valley's cool, sunny
heights via fresh, elegant wines. -T.Q.T.

FOUNDED:

1963
OWNERS:

The Zuccardi
family
WINEMAKER/
VITICULTURIST:

ACRES OWNED:

Sebastián
Zuccardi

ACRES OWNED:

ANNUAL

464

PRODUCTION:

ANNUAL

30,000 cases

PRODUCTION:

ESTATE GROWN:

60,000 cases

20%

ESTATE GROWN:

IMPORTER:

80%

Broadbent
Selections,
Richmond, VA

IMPORTER:

Winesellers,
Niles, IL

2018 Valle de Uco Paraje Altamira and San
Pablo Q Cabernet Franc ($20, 90 points) José
Alberto Zuccardi introduced the "Q" line in the late
1990s to showcase the top varieties that came out of
his experimental vineyards. Sebastián carries on the
tradition with his ﬁrst commercial release of cabernet
franc, a variety that holds great promise in the Uco
Valley's higher altitudes. This franc blends fruit from a
gravelly Altamira parcel at 3,608 feet in altitude with
some from his highest parcel, in San Pablo, at 4,594
feet. Aged in 2,500-liter wooden tanks, it offers cabernet franc's peppery ﬂavors in a plush, enveloping
texture, structured yet inviting.
2019 Valle de Uco Q Malbec ($20, 90 points)
Culled from parcels in the higher altitudes of the Uco
Valley-Vista Flores and La Consulta-this captures
Sebastián Zuccardi's penchant for bright, cheerful
malbec. It's ﬂoral and red-berried, with notes of rose,
berries and cream preserved by the vineyards' cool
climate and his light hand in the cellar.

Wine & Spirits - Winter 2020

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