Torrontés

Accolades

2019
94 Points - Tim Atkin MW
93 Points - Robert Parker

2018
93 Points - Robert Parker

2016
92+ Points - Robert Parker

Tasting Notes

The nose is concentrated and elegant with white and tropical fruit notes like banana, pineapple, citrus with lime peel and cassia. The palate is well balanced with good structure and invokes memories of farmhouse butter, white peaches, dried apricots and jams.

Winemaking Notes

In 1997 a friend of Abel and Maite who had been studying native grape varieties told them that they should look for plantings of Torrontés in the area as he had found some documents mentioning that the grape had been in San Vicente and La Bastida since the 1800s. Over the years, farmers had been pulling it out and it was being forgotten. Abel and Maite quickly found a farmer with a very old vineyard plot with a mixture of varieties, one of which was Torrontés. He allowed them to take some cuttings and start their own plantings.

At the time, Torrontés was not recognized by the Consejo Regulador and wines could not be labelled as such. With the first wine Abel and Maite produced, they labelled it with a small “T” in the top corner so their close customers would know what it was. In 2009, the Consejo added Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo to the list of allowed varieties and agreed to include Torrontés and Tempranillo Blanco due to pressure from Abel Mendoza and other producers now working with the grapes.

The first vintage they produced came from the original old plot where they found the vines. The wine is now being made from a few plots of the younger vines planted by Abel, with the oldest plot around 28 years old.

All Abel Mendoza white wines are handled in the same manner. The fruit is sorted and pressed in a pneumatic press. The juice goes into tank for a brief settling period and after one day is racked off into new French oak barrels for fermentation. After fermentation, the wines stay in barrel for 5 - 6 months. Batonnage is done every 2 - 3 days. After barrel maturation, the wines are blended into tank, stabilized and bottled.

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