Winemaker Notes
The 2017 Domaine Nico La Savante pours a glass that is bursting with red-mineral fruit, with slight reduction and a touch of citrus. Orange peel, earthy character with high acidity and low alcohol content. A vertical wine layered with tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I love the elegance of the 2017 La Savante Pinot Noir, a pure Pinot Noir from Gualtallary, from the vineyard informally called El Mirador, in the monastery part of the appellation. I love the flinty reduction and the Chambolle-like elegance of the wine. The palate reveals tons of chalky minerality and comes through as tasty, salty, elegant, insinuating and harmonious. I love the nuance and subtleness here. Awesome.
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James Suckling
Violet flowers and blueberries with gently earthy complexity. A very rich, complex and juicy pinot that has rich, cherry-flavored flesh and attractively grainy and finely detailed tannins that grip early and then release on the finish, in classic pinot-noir style. Drink or hold.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
With a winning combination of cool weather, high elevation and well-draining alluvial soils, it is no surprise that Mendoza’s Uco Valley is one of the most exciting up-and-coming wine regions in Argentina. Healthy, easy-to-manage vines produce low yields of high-quality fruit, which in turn create flavorful, full-bodied wines with generous acidity.
This is the source of some of the best Malbec in Mendoza, which can range from value-priced to ultra-premium. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay also perform well here.