2018 Finca Adalgisa - Malbec Mendoza (750ml)

Finca Adalgisa is one of Argentina's smallest wine producers, a three-generation family estate in Chacras de Coria, a district of Luján de Cuyo, where the Furlotti family planted Malbec vines back in 1916. Gabriela Furlotti later added an eleven-room boutique hotel on the property, and the winery makes just a single wine each year, crafted by respected winemaker Carmelo Patti. Patti is known for favoring balance and terroir over power, and Adalgisa is among the rare Argentine producers that age their wine for years before ever releasing it, turning out fewer than five hundred cases annually.

The fruit comes from the estate's own century-old vines, farmed organically at around 3,000 feet on alluvial soil layered with sand and loam. Low yields are hand harvested, destemmed, and fermented with native yeast over roughly twenty days. The wine then spends two years split between concrete vat and French oak before resting a minimum of three additional years in bottle, an unusually patient approach that sets it apart from most modern Malbec.

The result is closer in style to old-school Bordeaux than typical Mendoza Malbec, with blackberry and maraschino cherry fruit wrapped in clove, cinnamon, licorice, and cedar. Notes of dried leaves and soil add an earthy, almost wild edge to the long finish. Pair it with venison, roast duck, or aged Gruyère.