2014 Mendel Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza 750 ml

Cabernet Drinkers Take Note: The De La Mota Legacy & Mendel

Robert Parker’s reviews have changed the wine world’s landscape more than once. And so it was in 1992, when The Wine Advocate founder published a series of rave reviews for the work of Raúl de la Mota at Bodegas Weinert. Of Raúl’s 1977 Malbec, Parker wrote, “This wine competes with the finest red wines made anywhere in the world.” 94 points. Parker called Raúl’s 1983 Cabernet Sauvignon “a dead ringer for a high class St.-Julien or Pauillac” — 92 points. Parker’s conclusion — that Raúl de la Mota was “unquestionably producing South America’s greatest red wines,” ones that “can compete with the finest Bordeaux and California wines” — echoed throughout the Old World and the New.

1983 Cabernet Sauvignon “a dead ringer for a high class St.-Julien or Pauillac” — 92 points. Parker’s conclusion — that Raúl de la Mota was “unquestionably producing South America’s greatest red wines,” ones that “can compete with the finest Bordeaux and California wines” — echoed throughout the Old World and the New.

Today, Parker’s praise is viewed as a watershed moment in Argentine Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon history, and it made quite an impression on Raúl’s son, Roberto, who worked with his father from 1985 until 1994. Two years later, around Roberto’s 36th birthday, he was invited to help launch Terrazas de los Andes with a focus on Cabernet-Malbec blends, and three years later helped Terrazas launch Cheval des Andes, a joint venture with Château Cheval Blanc.

That’s the winemaking tradition Roberto draws from in every bottle of Mendel, the project he launched in partnership with Anabelle Sielecki in 2003.

Roberto’s experience helps explain why Mendel is one of the only estates in Argentina modeled after the “garagiste” châteaux of Bordeaux’s Right Bank. Set in the high ground of Luján de Cuyo, in the foothills of the Andes, Sielecki’s dad first planted the property in 1928. While other producers have pegged the southern Uco Valley as Cabernet country, more and more winemakers are harkening back to the old Cabernet vines planted in Luján de Cuyo, north of Agrelo around the town of Perdriel, home to some of the country’s oldest vineyards.

In Perdriel, as summer highs flirt with 90 degrees, nighttime lows dip into the high 40s. Old Cabernet vines spider deep through sandy clay and limestone-rich gravelly soils here, fending off hydric stress in dry growing seasons like 2014. Radical diurnal temperature shifts allowed the old vines to eke out less than 2 tons per acre of terrifically concentrated, small-cluster fruit — BB-sized berries of particularly high skin-to-juice ratio — helping to explain both the luscious, juicy core and superb tannic structure of the 2014 Mendel Cabernet Sauvignon.

The 2014 Mendel Cabernet Sauvignon is opaque purple in color. Voluptuous aromatically, featuring a muscular mix of crushed blackberry, mountain blueberry, and black cherry, subtly bracketed by new-wood cedar and tobacco leaf spice. Rich, dense, and silky on entry, filled with black cherry jam and fleshy plum and finishing with excellent cut and vibrancy that speaks to that 40-degree swing in daily temperature. While this elegant Luján de Cuyo powerhouse is drinking beautifully on release, like all of winemaker Roberto de la Mota’s old-vine Cabernets, dividends will be paid to the patient. Drink now-2023.

93 points from Decanter’s Master of Wine Tim Atkin. Matching 91-point scores from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Stephen Tanzer at Vinous, who calls it a “serious wine for the price.” That’s true at $30 on release, doubly so at $19.99 today. As rich and complex as Mendoza Cabernet Sauvignon ever gets. Shipping included on 6.