2011 Old Vine Malbec

Standing in this vineyard first planted nearly 100 years ago, watching the horses till the soil just as they have for a century, it’s easy to understand this Malbec’s magnificent terroir expression. Intense, fresh red and black fruits combine with linear minerality, bright acidity and silky tannins to produce a powerful, elegant and sultry seduction in a glass.

 

100% Malbec

What does "old vine" mean? By industry standards, the term ‘Old Vine’ usually means a wine whose vines are 30-40 years old, for new world wines. Vinifera can live up to 120 years or more.

What was the winemaking process for the Old Vine Malbec? The Old Vine Malbec was hand-harvested into small plastic bins, and then hand-sorted, and destemmed into one-ton open-top stainless steel fermenting tanks. Cold soak maceration was not warranted, nor any acid corrections, or sulfite additions. The only additions added during the fermentation process were DAP and F33 yeast. Caps were manually punched-down every three hours for a week, then down to three times a day for four days. Skins were pressed off in a pneumatic press to 1 bar. First press fraction was added to main wine, and the rest was discarded. The wine was monitored for two days during gross lees settlement, and then racked to 100% new French oak barrels. The wine stayed on the lees for 20 months and bottled without fining or filtering.