Winemaker Notes
Gold-green opaque color. On the nose it offers floral and vegetable notes, which assert their wild side, albeit delicately. Aged in French oak, this wine is toasty, spicy and salty; refreshing with some honeyed notes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is really amazing with an exotic dried-fruit character of pineapple and mangoes. Full-bodied, rich and fruity with cream, pie-crust and caramel character. Crazy chardonnay with a little Jura style and some flor undertones. It really does have flor in the barrel when aging. Love. Get it. Drink now. Top 100 Wine of 2018
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With an even darker, more intense golden color but fresher aromas and flavors compared to the 2015 vintage, the 2016 El Enemigo Chardonnay has more noticeable notes of curry and nuts, with higher acidity, which gives it somewhat of a Jura character. It has 13.5% alcohol and 7.4 grams of acidity (in tartaric), so, very healthy natural parameters. It had a longer élevage sous voile, up to 13 months, so that probably explains why the yeasty and spicy character is more marked here than in the 2015. Winemaker Alejandro Vigil likes it like this, but he doesn't want more of the flor character, as it's not supposed to be a flor wine. Superb! It will be very interesting to see how this wine ages in bottle. 14,000 bottles were filled in September 2017.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
By far the largest and best-known winemaking province in Argentina, Mendoza is responsible for over 70% of the country’s enological output. Set in the eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains, the climate is dry and continental, presenting relatively few challenges for viticulturists during the growing season. Mendoza, divided into several distinctive sub-regions, including Luján de Cuyo and the Uco Valley, is the source of some of the country’s finest wines.
For many wine lovers, Mendoza is practically synonymous with Malbec. Originally a Bordelaise variety brought to Argentina by the French in the mid-1800s, here it found success and renown that it never knew in its homeland where a finicky climate gives mixed results. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Pinot Noir are all widely planted here as well (and sometimes even blended with each other or Malbec). Mendoza's main white varieties include Chardonnay, Torrontés, Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.