Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Incredible color-you could use it in an inkwell! Dense and concentrated but never loses its ability to exude the red and black fruits and spice that are the true expression of Malbec in Mendoza. This is a huge wine that is a blend of old-vine grapes from 3 of Mendoza's most respected growers, located in three different districts. Only 4 barrels produced. While you certainly could drink this now, it will improve considerably with 3-5 years in the bottle.
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Wine Spectator
Exotic, with intensely concentrated but remarkably creamy fig, raspberry, boysenberry and currant fruit, seamlessly stitched with mocha and fruitcake notes. A nice bittersweet ganache twinge and a racy graphite underpinning on the finish helps keep it all honest. Very impressive. Drink now through 2015. 100 cases made.
Laura Catena is a fourth generation winemaker who grew up in a traditional Argentine-Italian winemaking family in Mendoza. Laura splits her time between Mendoza and San Francisco, California, where she is an emergency physician, university professor and occasional tango dancer. Laura had the vision of creating a new breed of Argentine wines: small quantities, artisan quality, and true to their individual terroirs. A pioneer of small-grower relations in Mendoza, Laura's incredible, limited production wines come from some of Argentina's best fruit from low-yield, high-elevation, family-owned vineyards. The wines are named after her children - Luca, Dante and Nicola - and symbolize her love for her family. The background of the label is the McDermott coat of arms of her American husband, Daniel McDermott.
Most distinguished and celebrated from Argentina’s Mendoza, Malbec has seen runaway success since the early 2000s. Mendoza’s agreeable, continental climate with hot, dry summers and cold snowy winters allows the perfect conditions for growing outstanding Malbec. This grape is easy to like for its lusty, deep flavors and aromas of blackberry, plum, red cherry, autumn spice and tilled earth. It’s easy to find delicious, fruit-driven, affordable everyday examples and in prices beyond, quite exceptional ones with dense, supple textures that make them capable of aging.