This joint venture between Bordeaux’s Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) and Catena in Mendoza is now in its fifteenth vintage; it’s always a blend of malbec and cabernet sauvignon. For this latest release, winemaker Fernando Bucema relied on malbec from old vines in Las Compuertas, a stony soil at the highest point in Luján de Cuyo, and blended it with 35 percent cabernet sauvignon from Altamira, in Valle de Uco. The result is explosive in red fruit, rich in malbec’s violet tones as well as the cassis of high-altitude cabernet. Still young, it needs two to three years to gain in flavor detail. – P.T.
