2018 Zuccardi Malbec Aluvional Paraje Altamira 750 ml

There is a certain class of Malbec that most American wine lovers would dream about—if they knew it existed. These are wines so complete—so seamlessly complex and powerful—that they shame any Napa Cabernets near them in price, yet they’re made for collectors of California’s finest. 

Sebastián Zuccardi’s 2018 Aluvional Paraje Altamira Malbec is one of them. 

Bearing a 97-point score from the tough-scoring Wine Advocate and 96 from the equally principled Vinous, it’s a bottle that stunned us into silence when we tasted it at Parrilla Don Julio, one of the best restaurants in Buenos Aires. We love Napa—but if most high-end Napa drinkers worked their way through a bottle of this with a nice steak, we’re sure they wouldn’t hesitate to make room for it in the cellar next to their cult Cabernets.

Sebastián Zuccardi is one of the shooting stars of Argentine wine. His vision for the future of his local wine industry is crystal clear and ambitious—and the wines he makes under the Aluvional label show off his attention to detail and passion.

A winemaker with an incredibly contagious passion for terroir, Zuccardi is so obsessed with the region that he constructed his winery from the stones of his vineyards—a feat that earned the winery “World’s Best Vineyard” from CNN in 2019. His mad-scientist-level attention to detail also recently granted him a spot on Decanter’s list of South America’s Top 10 winemakers.

This bottle highlights Mendoza’s prestigious Paraje Altamira appellation, where Malbec grows small, intensely-colored bunches at nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. Those tiny berries bring impressive concentration and power to the finished bottle, which will cellar beautifully for at least the next decade.