2022 Domaine Nico Soeur et Freres Grand Pere Pinot Noir Mendoza Argentina 750 ml

Most wineries’ early days are marked by toiling in the cellar and clamoring for attention in a crowded market. The prestige, and the fervent demand that accompanies it, comes years later—if it comes at all. 

Laura Catena’s exquisite Burgundian-style Domaine Nico Pinot Noirs, on the other hand, have been tightly allocated since day one.

The 2022 vintage is just Domaine Nico’s sixth, yet procuring the wine is the kind of grab-it-or-it’s-gone proposition that we associate with lofty Burgundy properties. That’s because Catena, in just a few vintages, has managed to establish Domaine Nico as the definitive South American Pinot Noir, and it’s one of the most elegant outside of the Côte d’Or—not something that we say lightly. 

In 1993—a decade before Argentine wine became synonymous with rich, inky Malbec—the Catena family planted two hectares of Pinot Noir vines in the poor soils of Villa Bastias, 3,675 feet above sea level. The vines grew, scraping for nutrients most of the year but treated to a wash of bright sun. 

Fifteen years later, Catena and Alejandro Vigil—Catena Zapata’s legendary 100-point winemaker—headed to these heights to scout out the finest sites for Pinot Noir, which Catena was convinced could thrive in the high-altitude Uco Valley. Domaine Nico was born. 

These are parcela wines—wines from individual plots—and Grand Père comes from vines planted by the Catena family three decades ago at 3,675 feet of elevation. The site is just five hectares planted with Dijon clone 115, grown in a thin layer of loamy gravel underlaid by alluvial rocks and limestone. As opposed to the Grand Mère parcel, which gets more sun, the shaded Grand Père site yields grapes with delicate red fruit and bright acidity. 

After 15 months in 25% new French oak barrels, this Pinot is drinking beautifully. It’s truly exciting to see an expression like this coming from Mendoza, and it’s the kind of exquisite wine we expect from Domaine Nico year in and year out.