Zuccardi Aluvional Gualtallary 2019

The 2019 Aluvional Gualtallary comes from the section people call Monasterio, although the official division of subzones has not yet been approved. This is always the wildest (Sebastián Zuccardi calls it Wildtallary…), with an explosive nose of wild herbs and flowers, thyme, rockrose and lavender, interwoven with violets and coupled with a laced texture with very fine-grained, chalky tannins, showcasing what the zone can do and why it was made famous. They harvest by soil, because it’s not all the same, and they look for mid-palate depth using parts where they have caliche stones but also a little bit of clay, just bellow the hills (los cerros). Their main work here is to avoid exuberance and give it restraint, and it comes through as refined and slender; if you let the grapes ripen too much, you can have heavier aromas reminiscent of black olives, of which there’s nothing here. They do a gentler second half of the fermentation, just wetting the cap with buckets (by hand) and avoiding cold fermentations. It seems to work wonders… Simply superb, this is super elegant but in an austere, tight and precise way. Drink date: 2023-2035. Score – 98. (Luis Gutiérrez, robertparker.com, Nov. 30, 2022)