VINOS DE POTRERO | El Debut de Potrero | Gualtallary | 2014
malbec | cabernet franc | syrah

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To give birth to a wine of excellence, the vine needs a terroir which challenges its potential to the maximum. As if blessed by contradiction, the poorer the terroir and the potrero, the better the results. Any vine which endures the crude cold of the night and the blazing sun of the day, the absence of humidity and the heights of the Andes will yet thrive and offer fruit which will ripen to be truly exceptional.

Today we are going to review a wine that comes from Argentina‘s most famous wine-growing region: Mendoza – El Debut de Potrero Gualtallary 2014 by Vinos de Potrero. This wine is a blend of malbec, cabernet franc and syrah, where malbec forms the wine’s main body, cabernet franc adds herbaceousness and subtle terroir notes to the final blend, while syrah enhances the wine’s structure and color depth. The grapes were sourced from the Gualatallary vineyards planted on calcareous soils at 1350m above sea level in the middle of the Andes Range in the Valle de Uco sub-region, which is known for producing wines with elegance and excellent aging potential. This particular wine is a perfect example of modern micro-vinification, with spontaneous fermentation without explicit temperature control, aged for 18 months in used 500-liters oak barrels. That said, without further ado, let’s take a look at the wine tasting results.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

//Visual
colour: deep & opaque ruby
clarity: hazy & noble garnet shades

//Olfactory
intensity: powerful & clean
fruit profile: red fruits & black fruits
__red fruits: sour cherry | pomegranate skin
__black fruits: black cherry | blackberry | blackcurrant | black plum
fruit character: overripe & dried

//Flavor
non fruit: spice | oak | earthy | other
__spice: red pepper | black pepper
__oak: cherry tree wood | roasted oakwood | cherry tree bark
__earthy: black soil dust | black tea
__other: hints of leather & tobacco | barnyard
__wood: used / medium roast

//Palate
sweetness: bone dry
acidity: med(+)
alcohol: high
tannin: med(+)
__grip: ripe
balance: good
__dominant: alcohol
body: rough | full-bodied

//Taste
fruit profile: black fruits
fruit character: ripe & overripe
non fruit: spice & oak
finish: med(+)
aftertaste: seedy-rough

//Scoring
VINOS DE POTRERO | El Debut de Potrero | Gualtallary | 2014
variety: malbec | cabernet franc | syrah
country: Argentina
region: Mendoza | Valle de Uco
rating: 92.4

//Conclusion
maturity: developing | age for at least 2-3 years
verdict: great | a must try
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This is definitely a great wine of Argentina and, with a total of 92.4 points scored, this wine is right there, among the best wines we’ve rated so far. Check our complete database on the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines that we have tasted and reviewed or go to the about us page and find out more about our exquisite rating system.

Verdict: this is a quite spicy wine blend – a wine that still needs time to round up and develop into the bottle before it will reach the peak of its form. It tastes round and plump, with a nuanced fruit-forward profile and a noble oaky accent. The wine feels well structured and complex, maybe just a bit off-balanced, mostly due to the overwhelming alcohol warmth on the moutheel, as otherwise it has crisp acidity, grippy tannins and some hints of future elegance on the palate. It can definitely age for another 2 or 3 years in the bottle, but keep an eye on its development, as it is of paramount importance to understand a wine’s limits: there are wines that might gain some much desired finesse with age while losing most of the flamboyance, yet there are also wines that are elegant enough in their yearly stages and age will take its toll on them. Remember that it is always better to drink a wine a year too soon than a day too late. We would recommend to pair this wine with spicy or barbequed meaty dishes, especially those that are rich in natural umami flavours, in order to enhance and complement the spicy-hot character of the wine. Cheers!

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