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Viinin Kuvailu
The Story
The wine of Cheval des Andes combines the vibrant and intense expression of Argentinian Malbec with the rigour, elegance and savoir-faire of a great Bordeaux.
It is a unique blend of Malbec grapes and Bordeaux varietals – an ensemble with the exuberance of Malbec balanced by the temperance of Cabernet Sauvignon, completed with hints of Petit Verdot.
The vision of Cheval des Andes is to bring Château Cheval Blanc’s winemaking philosophy – which focusses on cellaring potential and elegance – to Argentina. Cheval des Andes makes wines that age gracefully and “travel through the decades,” according to Pierre Lurton, President of Château Cheval Blanc and Cheval des Andes.
These wines are elegant, meaning they are the most refined expression of the terroir of Mendoza. On the nose, they are complex rather than intense and on the palate, they are balanced rather than powerful.
Wine Information
Exceptional is the word we can use to describe the 2016 harvest. The new vintage was cropped from a completely unusual year due to unstable temperatures – cooler than the average and with an exceptional amount of rain marked by El Niño, a cyclical phenomenon caused by the warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This resulted in heavy rainfall between October and December.
Thanks to the spring rainfall during budburst and veraison, the phenological cycle was delayed by 20 days. On one hand , due to higher temperatures followed by a dry summer, the vines produced lower yields than usual. While on the other hand they produced small but rich and concentrated berries.
Following a careful selection process, the vintage was vinified in small stainless-steel vats (80hl). The 2016 vintage was aged for 14 months in oak; 2/3 in 225 litre barriques and 1/3 in larger 400 litre barrels.
70% of the wine was aged in new oak and 30% in 1-year-old barrels. All of the barrels were made from oak from Central France. The barrels used to age this vintage of Cheval des Andes were made by world-class French coopers.
In the 2016 vintage, 100% of the grapes came from the top ‘terroirs’ of Las Compuertas and La Consulta. The resulting wines have good ageing potential and are notable by their precision, balance and freshness.