This variety is a unique rarity in the world. Rodrigo Arizu, CEO of boutique winery
Viña Alicia, explains the features of this super premium wine, awarded 96 points by Robert Parker, with an annual production of only 2,000 bottles and whose price reaches U$ 120. Here are some of the details behind the mystery of this
"Brote Negro" or "Black Stem Malbec".
The estate of Viña Alicia in Mendoza has two vineyards dating back over 100 years and were planted by one of the grandfathers of Rodrigo Arizu (his father is Luigi Bosca's highly regarded winemaker Alberto Arizu). And in one of them was, precisely, where mother nature decided to alter the course of things.
"The vine branches of the Malbec are always green and then turn brown. But one day we discovered that some of the stems were black and we also noticed that the clusters were smaller and had a different period of maturation that the traditional grapes."
Nine years ago they were picking all the grapes at the same time, but when they noticed these variations, they realized after doing some research that there was no record in the world for something like this, and they began to experiment.
"My father consulted several
ampelographic (specialists in grapevines) and no one was able to give us a satisfying answer. So what we are now considering is to send a sample to Montpellier, France, for a DNA analysis."
Rodrigo Arizu's theory is that "a natural mutation has occurred to the vineyard due to its age. In fact, vine is the plant that has mutated the most in history. This means that we could be quietly bumping into a new variety of Malbec, with its own unique DNA."
When talking about the wine characteristics
(2006 Malbec Brote Negro), Arizu explained that "after experimenting for two years, we found that the fruit is much more intense and complex than the classic Malbec because the floral and mineral notes are not typical of this variety."
Most of Viña Alicia's annual production is for export, just a tiny fraction stays in Argentina.
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