Keeping Pinot Noir Cool in Chile with Leyda

At the Las Brisas Vineyard in Chile, Leyda Pinot Noir grapes are already situated to develop slowly. The name of the vineyard itself, Las Brisas, means the breeze in Spanish and reflects on the cooler ocean breezes that play across the southwest slopes of the vineyards and helps to keep the grapes nice and cool.

Early Vintage reports from Chile** told of cooler than normal temperatures anyway, so keeping the Leyda Pinot Grapes growing slowly was not going to be the issue. Leyda experienced many days in spring with the temperature lower than 10°C during Pinot Noir flowering. This resulted in the vines producing small and large berries within the same bunch, known as millerandage. This came after an already difficult and dry winter rain cycle that created a handicap for the vines. Drier years can create difficulties for the balance of the vine.

Chilean Weather, Chilean Pinot Noir

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 A Red Wine from Mendoza, Argentina  

I keep a lot of wines from Argentina around the house. I find them a good value and they typically have a lot of forward, spicy fruit which I enjoy. I recently tried Mapema, a 2005 Malbec wine from Mendoza, Argentina.

Packed full of Flavor in Argentina Wine

On  the first taste of the Mapema, I realized this was classic Malbec, but was decidedly better than most. It was a little more serious than your typical Malbec. It did this without giving anything up on the traditional characteristics. This wine is a high altitude, cool air wine that gives off a lot of intensity of black and red cherries. It is bold with overtones of vanilla, coffee and chocolate. There is some pepper to be found here as well.

A key indicator of the quality of any wine for me is the quality and length of the finish:

• Does the wine continue to evolve for the next 30-60 seconds after you have sipped it?
• How about 2 minutes? Is it still pleasant?
• When do you notice that the taste stops?

Mapema Malbec 2005 certainly has a wonderful long, pleasant finish. It is much longer than I expect with most Malbecs no matter where they are from.

This is a wine that could set a new benchmark for Malbec and Argentinean wines. It has a Wine Advocate Rating of 90 points and is priced to sell at $17.00, I know I’ll revisit it soon.

Tikal Patriota 2006 is Big in More Ways Than One

For this Argentina wine review, – 92 point rating – we must start with the bottle. You may get tired of me starting to write a wine review and begin with some sort of description of the packaging. But Tikal Patriota is one that I just can’t help myself. The big dark bottle weighs in at 2.8 lbs—-yes, I weighed it! It seemed like 40 lbs. I did a random sample of other wine bottles (empty) and they were coming in a 1.3 or so. So why the heavy glass? Must add something to shipping. Is it necessary to keep what’s inside the bottle in check?

Tikal Patriota 2006

Tikal Patriota (Patriot) is an Argentine wine blend of 60% Bonardo and 40% Malbec. The color is an inky, dark purple. There is probably some fruit here. Black cherries, raspberries, blueberries. I get some sort of berries but this is an Argentine wine without a lot of subtlety or nuisance. This BIG…a powerful 13.9% alcohol but dense and ripe fruit that is intense and jammy.

Argetina Wine that’s Perfect for a Summer Barbeque

This Argentine wine yells out for steak or barbeque or something meaty on the grill. If you like this modern style of powerhouse wines, especially ones at a good price, this could be the wine for you. I had steak with this wine but as much as I wanted to love Tikal Patriota 2006, ranked 92 in Wine Advocate, I didn’t.

The wine was big, balanced and I guess my style is one that is more layered. Perhaps it was young and will improve with age. I should buy another bottle of Tikal Patriota 2006 and put it aside to check that out.

Did I mention the bottle was heavy?