2022 Altos de las Hormigas - Malbec Reserve (750ml)

Altos Las Hormigas was founded in 1995 when winemaker Alberto Antonini and entrepreneur Antonio Morescalchi bet everything on Malbec, a contrarian move when most of Mendoza was planting Cabernet Sauvignon. Sourced from estate vines in the calcareous-soil sites of Gualtallary and Altamira, this Reserve bottling shows a textbook aromatic expression of modern Argentine Malbec, melding black fruit with fresh flowers and herbs, with an undercurrent of turned earth and crushed stone. The palate is rich yet refined, combining a tensile structure with a generous core of deliciously ripe fruit, concluding with a staining but restrained finish framed by elegant minerality. A genuinely serious, terroir-driven Malbec from one of the producers most responsible for putting the grape's high-altitude Uco Valley expression on the map.