2018 Marcelo Pelleriti Cabernet Franc Signature Uco Valley Mendoza 750 ml

Marcelo Pelleriti’s Cabernet Franc is a stunningly serious bottle of wine, a powerful, 95-point triumph that challenges the best big reds of France and California.

Given Marcelo’s 100-point pedigree as the force behind Bordeaux stars Château Le Gay and Château La Violette, that’s not surprising. One of the only Argentine winemakers to ever earn a perfect score from Robert Parker himself, he’s making some of the most exciting wines in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

This is a powerful wine that’s easily capable of aging for a decade in the cellar, if you have the patience. We locked it in immediately after it blew us away at a tasting—even before the 95-point review came out.

This Cabernet Franc reminds us of a cross between a top Napa bottling and an excellent wine from St.-Émilion, with a dark-purple color and an explosive nose of blackberries, candied raspberries, graphite, and a hint of Virginia pipe tobacco. That mesmerizing complexity continues in a densely flavored and structured palate, which weaves together flavors of dark fruit, spice, and a hint of mocha with a wave of fine-grained tannins through the finish. 

In other words, it’s what happens when you give Pelleriti a vineyard of expertly farmed Cabernet Franc in the cool, high-altitude Uco Valley in Mendoza. When you hand such stellar grapes off to a winemaker who has been crafting some of the best in Bordeaux for the last 15 years—but calls Argentina home—you have a recipe for greatness.