2017 Zuccardi Concreto Malbec Mendoza Argentina 750 ml

When a wine hits the #10 spot on Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100, receives 96 points from James Suckling, and its winery wins the CNN 2019 World's #1 Best Vineyard Award (out of 1,500 international nominees), the very last thing you’d expect is a bargain. Luckily for us all, we committed to the 2017 Zuccardi Concreto Malbec the second we tasted it, well before it secured all that press, which means we can offer this region-defining Malbec to you at just $26.99.

Wonderfully expressive and pure, with dark fruit aromas this wine carries a brilliant tinge of saline mineral polish. Sumptuous on entry yet energetic throughout, it also boasts fresh notes of blackberry, black plum, and blueberry that are accented with meat, pepper spice, and chocolate. An unusual earthiness harkens French Malbec from Cahors, but the opulence and mid-palate heft is 100% Argentine. So dynamic and mineral-driven, it’s no wonder the Wine Advocate had one word for the 2017 Concreto: “Bravo!” 

Any visitor to Zuccardi is immediately struck by the Andes mountains, towering over the vineyards in startlingly near distance. It’s hard to imagine a more spectacularly dramatic wine country backdrop (it just doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world). We had always wondered why it’s so hard to capture such evocative terroir in the region’s trademark Malbecs, but that was before we met Sebastián Zuccardi, and tasted the 2017 Concreto. 

According to the Wine Advocate, “Zuccardi is clearly among the top wineries of the country—and improving each year.” That’s all thanks to Sebastián, who is at the forefront of a renegade crew who have been called the “cement heads.” He takes that as a compliment.

He should—the term refers to a small band of rebel Argentine winemakers who are eschewing new oak in favor of cement (concreto) in order to pursue cleaner, fresher, more site-specific wines. Without the distraction of oak, they believe vinifying and aging in cement empowers the wine to better convey the region’s mineral-rich Andean terroir. 

As one of South America’s most progressive new-generation winemakers, we’d been vying for a visit with Sebastián for some time, which was how we found ourselves licking rocks in his vineyard on our last Mendoza trip. 

Instead of explaining what he attributes to the special texture of his wines, Sebastián encouraged us to “try a stone.” The perceptible chalky flavor of the rocks were indeed reflected in sleek minerality of his finished Concreto. “Why would I want to cover all that magic with oak?” Glasses in hand, sipping a soon-to-be-96-point wine, and staring out at what would later be crowned World’s Best Vineyard, we couldn’t think of a single reason. 

Based in Uco Valley—the highest-altitude region in Mendoza province—Zuccardi grapes are grown between 3,000 and 4,500 feet above sea level. Characterized by calcium carbonate and chalk, the vineyard’s amalgam of minerals is more typically found at the bottom of the ocean.

Sebastián Zuccardi is changing what was once thought possible in Mendoza, not least with his 2017 Zuccardi Concreto. We still can’t believe we were lucky enough to taste it before it hit the big time.