Cheval des Andes 2018
A “Grand Cru” from Argentina
Cheval des Andes is the result of a joint venture between Château Cheval Blanc (Premier Cru Classé A, Saint-Emilion) and Terrazas de Los Andes, a pioneer of cool-climate, high-altitude winemaking in Argentina.
The story of this union began in the late 1990s when Pierre Lurton, the president of Château Cheval Blanc, was in search of pristine Malbec vines. Finding these vines was a form of connecting to the origins of Bordeaux. For context, most of France’s Malbec was eradicated by the devastating phylloxera outbreak in the 1860s. Fortunately, many of these plantings were saved because of a practice called “grafting,” but the identity of this grape would be forever changed. Because of this, Pierre Lurton set his sights on Argentina, the one country home to a sea of ungrafted and unaltered Malbec vines. After discovering the Malbec vineyard Las Compuertas at the foot of the Andes Mountain range, Pierre knew he had stumbled upon something extraordinary.
Though Cheval des Andes has achieved the milestone of its 20th vintage, the estate’s history is a long one. In the 1850s, the French transported plantings of Malbec vines from Bordeaux to Argentina, and these cuttings thrived in the country’s warmer temperatures and extreme terroir. The cuttings of Malbec were spared from the French phylloxera outbreak at the turn of the century that nearly eradicated the Malbec vines in Bordeaux. The Las Compuertas vineyard was one property in the prestigious Luján de Cuyo region that would be planted with old Malbec in 1929. Seventy years later, these vines captured Pierre Lurton’s attention, inspiring him to create a wine that would uncover the origins of Bordeaux.
The name “Las Compuertas” means “The Floodgates,” which is an homage to the irrigation methods used by the Incan people who were indigenous to this region. They would typically use a snowpack to water the vines from the Andes Mountain range. Interestingly, this method drowned phylloxera pests, which may be why most old vine Malbec was spared from the devastating outbreak that affected the rest of the world. The team at Cheval des Andes has refined this practice, collecting the snowpack from the Andes Mountains in snow reservoirs and then using it to irrigate the vines at this "Grand Cru" vineyard at the base of the Andes Mountains. They ensure that each parcel is planted in perfectly compatible terroir and harvested at the optimum date to ensure freshness. The Petit Verdot is imported directly from Château Margaux prior to being added to the final blend, depending on the vintage.
Located in one of the most renowned regions of Luján de Cuyo, in the north of Mendoza, Cheval des Andes spans 50 hectares. The richness of this exceptional terroir at the foot of the Andes mountain range enables the vineyard to cultivate two grape varieties: Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Cheval des Andes wine is a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot, which may sometimes be added depending on the vintage. This combination captures the intensity of Argentinian terroir mixed with the rigor, savoir-faire, and elegance of a great Bordeaux. Cheval des Andes creates the Grand Cru of the Andes, distinguished by freshness, elegance, and exceptional aging potential.
The winemaking team crafts the finest possible expression of this unique terroir in a given year. Cheval des Andes wine is unique in Argentina as it reveals the freshness and elegance of the terroir through blends inspired by Cheval Blanc with cellaring potential and complexity. On the nose, they are complex, and on the palate, they reveal rich red fruit flavors that are smoothly blended with coffee and spices. The wine has a silky texture and delicious finish.
The Cheval Blanc team started a biodiversity project on the property, ensuring that local birds and bees are attracted to their vineyards. After the vines are harvested by hand, they implement the vinification process, ensuring the final blend is nothing short of perfection. Cheval des Andes favors elegance and restraint over power and bold fruit, making it a stylistically unique wine from Argentina and a leader in the region.
“Continuing the trend of more Malbec in the blend, the 2018 Cheval Des Andes is another remarkable wine based on 70% Malbec and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon that was fermented in tank and aged in 40% new Bordeaux barrels, with the balance in larger 400-liter barrels and one larger 2,500-liter oak vat. While the cooperage here is mostly French, they do include a touch of eastern European oak as well. Tasting like the 2016, only better, this beauty has gorgeous cassis, black cherry, and black raspberry fruit as well as plenty of ripe tobacco, green cedar, rosemary, damp earth, and spring flower-like aromas and flavors. As with the 2016, there's an herbal, subtly green undercurrent here (although it’s more mitigated here), but this is just pure, focused, and impeccably balanced, with beautiful fruit, gorgeous tannins, and an undeniable salinity on the finish. A brilliant wine, it has another 10-15 years of prime drinking.” - Jeb Dunnuck, Jeb Dunnuck (March 2022), 95/100, Drink 2022–2037
“The 2018 Cheval des Andes is a blend of 70% Malbec and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon fermented in small lots in 3,000- to 8,000-liter tanks and matured 40% in 225-liter oak barrels, 40% in 400-liter oak barrels and the remaining 20% in 2,500-liter oak vats for 13 months. Ninety percent of the oak used was French and the rest a blend of Austrian, Slovenian and German oak, 50% of it new. 2018 has been one of the best vintages in recent times in Mendoza, and the wine shows it. It's a cooler vintage, and the wine has improved in freshness and elegance without losing any clout. It's 14.5% alcohol and has a pH of 3.73. This is young, juicy, elegant and balanced and still has some herbal and toasted notes; it's medium to full-bodied, with the creamy and luxurious texture of the modern Bordeaux, ultra fine tannins and a long, dry and precise finish. It's still undeveloped and seems to have all the components and the balance between them for a long and positive development in bottle. With wines like this, I sometimes wish I had a time machine so I could see them in 20 years from now... I think this is the finest Cheval des Andes I've ever tasted. 100,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in January 2020.” - Luis Gutiérrez, Robert Parker Wine Advocate (September 2021), 98/100, Drink 2022–2040
“Lovely depth to the fruit, clear chocolate, liquorice, rosemary and black pepper spice, along with blueberry, black cherry, nuances of orange rind. A relatively low level of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend compared to some years, but it still pulls its weight in terms of the aromatics profile. Gérald Gabillet director and winemaker (previously at Château Angélus in St Emilion).” - Jane Anson, Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux (July 2021), 95/100, Drink 2026–2042
| LWIN | 2909015 |
|---|---|
| Stock Status | In Stock |
| Appellation | Mendoza |
| Vintage | 2018 |
| Brand | Château Cheval Blanc |
| Shipping Weight | 3.000000 |
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