Terrazas de los Andes Gran Malbec 1998
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Aroma: powerful notes of jammy black fruit dominate, in addition to the plum and raisin characteristics typical of a ripe Malbec. After swilling the wine around the glass, new aromas of liquorice, vanilla and toasted caramel burst forth creating an exciting new complexity.
Taste: a great body and structure. Its best quality being the sheer volume of silky fruit coating the mouth, whereby notes of plums and raisins combine with those of black and morello cherry. Soft, sweet tannins give the wine a full body and a luscious complexity yielding to a staggeringly long and lingering finish.
Consumption suggestions: this wine can be drunk now or laid down for 10-15 years, whereby the concentrated fruit aromas will further evolve to new and exciting levels of intensity.
At the end of the 1950s, the famous French Champagne house, Moët & Chandon, realized there was an enormous potential for growth in South America. They sent their wine analyst, Renaud Poirier, to study the possibility of expansion. Monsieur Poirier finally proved that Luján de Cuyo, a region within the province of Mendoza, was the best place for the birth of fine wines. In 1960, Chandon Argentina was established, the first subsidiary of Moët & Chandon outside France.
To make the Terrazas de los Andes wines, Chandon Argentina took the initiative to restore this building, located in the heart of Perdriel and at the foot of the imposing Cordón del Plata (a section of the Andes Mountain Range).
In the past, Chandon Argentina made only sparkling and generic still wines, however at the beginning of the '90s fueled by a political system more orientated towards an international market, a varietal wines project was born, to which Terrazas has now become the reality. Situated in Perdriel there is an old Spanish style winery that was used by Pedro Domecq to create his brandy. Renaud Poirier asked Domecq if he could use his equipment to make the first experimental vintages, between 1957 and 1959. Thirty years later Terrazas de los Andes was born, a tributary of Chandon Argentina dedicated exclusively to the production of varietal wines.