2018 | Bodega Chacra | Mainqué Chardonnay

Full-bodied yet very sleek and polished. Extremely smooth and refined. Hints of cream and lightly toasted nuts and praline.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The second vintage of the first white wine is the 2018 Mainqué Chardonnay, produced with the help of Jean-Marc Roulot from Meursault. The fermentation of 65% of the volume was in oak barrels (35% of them new), and the remaining 35% was in concrete egg. There is more sand in the vineyards here than in the one for the Chacra Chardonnay, where they find more clay and some limestone. They picked around the 4th of February, a little earlier than in 2017 despite the fact that 2017 was much warmer; it was quite early and the wine is 12.5% alcohol. The white wines have the Roulot signature of purity and precision. The grapes were very healthy to start with. They go through a sorting table, are pressed, settled for 24 hours and then placed in Burgundy barrels. There was no 100% malo, but it was not a choice; it just happened like that. It has textbook aromas of barrel-fermented Chardonnay and has a sharp and long palate with the signature salinity and length that makes it so tasty.

• James Suckling: I love the beautiful aromas of sliced apples, pears and pear blossom. Cookies. Honey. Straw. Full-bodied yet very sleek and polished. Extremely smooth and refined. Hints of cream and lightly toasted nuts and praline. Very, very long and persistent. Fantastic wine made with Burgundy’s famous winemaker, Roulot.

Producer Information

Bodega Chacra is a wine producer in the Rio Negro Valley of northern Patagonia, in Argentina. It was established in 2004 by Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, whose grandfather was responsible for the iconic Italian wine Sassicaia. Chacra has three vineyards of very old Pinot Noir vines, and makes a range of premium Pinot Noir wines in Patagonia. Incisa was initially inspired to create an estate in the Rio Negro Valley in 2001 after a chance blind tasting of a Pinot Noir from the region. He bought a vineyard with vines that had been planted as far back as 1932, and were on their original root systems. Bodega Chacra has since added two more old-vine Pinot Noir vineyards to its holdings – the first planted in 1955 and the second in 1967. The bodega is named for a farming method used in Patagonia – "chacra" is the local word for a square farm divided into four equal squares by canals. This system uses snow melt from the Andes for irrigation, making the Patagonian desert fertile. Poplar trees have been planted around the vineyards to shelter the vines from wind, which can be an issue in the area. The combination of aridity, altitude, low annual rainfall and clean air all help to keep phylloxera and other vine diseases at bay, while providing a good terroir for the production of high quality wine. Grapes are harvested by hand, and are fermented using natural yeasts. The wines are aged in French oak, around 20 percent of which is new. The wine is left on its lees in the barrel for 12 months and bottled without fining or filtration. Bodega Chacra makes three single-vineyard Pinot Noirs: Trienta y Dos from the 1932 vineyard; Cincuenta y Cinco from the 1955 vineyard; and Sesanta y Sete from the 1967 vineyard. It also makes a standard Pinot Noir, Barda, from grapes not used in the singe-vineyard wines and from younger vines in the original 1932 vineyard. Bodega Chacra also makes a Merlot called Mainqué, and a rosé made from Pinot Noir.

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