2017 Mendel Malbec Mendoza Argentina 750 ml

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, 100% Malbec grapes are aged in expensive French Taransaud oak barrels. With some of the vines dating back to the 1930s, it’s no wonder Wine Spectator’s former European Bureau Chief James Suckling found “impressive concentration” in his 93-point review of today’s dark-fruited, espresso bean-kissed and new wood cedar-spiced 2017 Mendel Malbec. 

The only problem with the 2017s from Argentina is there’s very little to go around. The quality is high—off the charts—but severe spring frosts drastically reduced yields, and when the harvest was capped off by a picture-perfect growing season from summer through autumn, producers had very little of an excellent crop. In short, if you miss out now, you might miss out on the 2017s, period—and that goes for Mendel.    

But vintage after vintage, almost regardless of weather, there is one reason that Mendel produces some of the finest value Malbec wines today, with serious structure and complex flavors—wines that have cemented longtime fans here at Wine Access. That reason is winemaker Roberto de la Mota, who, according to Jancis Robinson, “has been making some of the best wines in Argentina for a long time.” 

At Mendel, Malbec vines planted in soils 3,200 feet above sea level in Luján de Cuyo spider through light sand and gravel, fending off hydric stress and seeking out spring water reserves in the substrata during the arid summers. At harvest, the entire growing season is captured in beautifully concentrated, small-cluster fruit, which yields just around two tons per acre. In the low-yielding 2017 vintage, the crop was reduced even further.

De la Mota’s involvement goes back to 2002 when Anabelle Sielecky had the chance to buy the vineyard her late father planted in 1928. But she was an architect who knew little about winemaking. But she met Roberto, a winemaker with arguably Argentina’s most impressive viticultural bloodline—the high Parker scores his father Don Raul de la Mota earned in the 1970s and 1980s thrust Argentinian wines onto the world stage. A partnership was born. More importantly, two legacies were preserved.