One night, a man named Pierre Lurton had a dream. In his dream, he would follow along the original Malbec vines from Bordeaux to Argentina. This would have happened in the 1850's, when around the time of the fateful 1855 Bordeaux Classification, Malbec was widely common in the Grand Cru vineyards in France, where today Malbec isn't nearly as common in Bordeaux, replaced by Merlot, and any left has been grafted on as a result of phylloxera wave had decimated the original Malbec in France.

I don't have such dreams - in mine, I'm typically running around being chased by T-Rex's a la Jurassic Park. And that's got to be the main reason I'm not the one running the show over at the highly esteemed Cheval Blanc in Saint-Emilion and Chateau d'Yquem in Graves, Gironde.

As it turns out, Pierre Lurton, who has been the trusted chief of such highly esteemed legendary estates belonging to French luxury giant LVMH and its head Bernard Arnault, had been an ardent student of history and had wanted to go back in time and trace a Bordeaux that could have been - and that would take him to Mendoza, Argentina.

As mentioned earlier, Bordeaux was once popular with the Malbec that covered somewhere between 20-40% of the vineyards. Yet decades after 1855, a wave of phylloxera changed all that and the only way for Malbec to continue surviving in Bordeaux is to have grafted roots - while this does technically produce Malbec grapes, it isn't quite the same. On a trip to Argentina in the late 1990's - an exciting time when many winemakers were in search of opportunity in the New World, looking for the next big thing - Lurton had conceived the idea to create a sort of ancestral Bordeaux wine when he had discovered plots of ungrafted Malbec planted all the way back in 1929. Through the mid-1800's, Bordeaux had indeed been exporting Malbec vines to Argentina that were much more suitable for the Andean climate, and had survived to this day in Mendoza, which has been termed the Grand Cru of the New World.

With the acknowledgement that the Argentinian climate was vastly different from that of France, Lurton had immediately knew that it was probably wise to tap on the local expertise of Terraza de Los Andes, which also belonged to parent company LVMH. And so with the help of Terraza's winemaker, Roberto de la Mota, Lurton would embark on creating Cheval des Andes come 1999 as a joint venture between the two LVMH-owned winemakers. He would first select the Las Compuertas vineyard in Vistalba, Mendoza, as the original vineyard, and later add a second vineyard to the project, La Consulta, located in the Uco Valley.

Las Compuertas, or The Floodgates, is so named after the ancestral irrigation methods used by the Incan people who once inhabited the Lujan de Cuyo sub-region. The Incans would use snowpack to water their vines sat at the foothills of the Andes mountains, some 1.1km above sea level. This method happened to also be highly effective at preventing phylloxera, which resulted in old Malbec vines that were over 80 years old. To this day, the Cheval des Andes team continues to tap on this method, having also added primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, and at times Cabernet Franc and Merlot to the 50 hectare plot. Petit Verdot is also imported directly from the Chateau Margaux vineyard and added to the final blend, depending on the vintage.

The second vineyard, La Consulta, was added to the project in 2001, as Lurton had believed that the 15 hectare site in the Uco Valley was further south and at a higher altitude, and thus would experience cooler temperatures with a great diurnal temperature swing that could produce Malbec with more tension that would marry well with the blend created from the warm Lujan de Cuyo site. While Las Compuertas and La Consulta both have alluvial soils, the former has more limestone whilst the latter has more sand.

With existing old vines already on the site, Cheval des Andes would make its debut vintage in 2001 and 2002, with a blend primarily focused on Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. Grapes are hand harvested (double selection), fermented by variety (with a long month-long maceration), blended, and then aged for 16 to 18 months in new and second-fill Bordeaux barrels of French and Austrian oak.

One of the more unique aspects about the Cheval des Andes vineyards is that biodiversity is actively encouraged by planting flowers and maintaining organic vegetable and animal farms (with sheep, horses, cows, llamas and alpacas), where local birds and bees are attracted to the vineyards. The team is led by Gerald Gabillet who is the Technical Director of Cheval des Andes, and Pierre-Olivier Clouet, the Technical Director of Chateau Cheval Blanc. Whilst the team primarily aims to work on minimal intervention, much of its process has followed that of Cheval Blanc. Their goal is to create a wine that "favours elegance and restraint over power and bold fruit", which sets it apart from typical New World wines with big jammy fruits.

With all that said, let's get to tasting the 2019 Cheval des Andes! The 2019 vintage is made with a 50/50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.

Let's go! 

Cheval des Andes 2019 - Review

Tasting Notes

Colour: Light Ruby

Aroma: Moderate richness of dark berries - mulberry and blackberry gummies, there's a chewiness to its texture, with more on blackcurrant cordial. Also a light leafiness, some soft earthy and spiced notes of tobacco and clove.

Taste: Light spiced clove notes that pop out. Initially lots of plasticine, red licorice, and a whole lot of wax. More on red berries of raspberries and strawberry candy. Even with its richness, it remains quite bright. With more time decanting, the plasticine and wax goes away, revealing an even richer and fuller, medium to full bodied palate of heaps of red berries, cherries and raspberry.

Finish: Some of those raspberries, cherries and strawberries carry through to the finish, initially lots of wax (which do subside with time), the tannins are soft but firm, becoming more prominent on the finish giving it more dryness. There's also more red licorice and raspberries with time.

My Thoughts

Perhaps because of the higher mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec in the mix here, the goal of which was to increase the ageing potential of the wine with the Cabernet Sauv, whilst the Malbec would provide more in the way of those big red fruits that's also richer - the end result of that is that if you're having it young, you get lots of those red fruits that comes off still rather high pitched and not fully mellowed out to reveal more of those secondary flavours, and then you've also got the Cabernet Sauv that hasn't quite had time to reflect its tannins. 

This is the first time Cheval Blanc is doing a 50/50 blend by the way. And I think there's great potential there but at the moment still far too young. I love the big red fruits, the complexity and earthiness on the nose, with the richness and fullness that I already got here on the palate, but with some age, I think you'd see much better harmony between the darker fruits and red berries, as well as more structure and tannins. Thus far the nose is dominated by the dark berries and earthiness, whilst the palate is too bright with the red fruits, as well as being rather fruit forward and not so much of the tannins, acidity and structure.

With a good amount of time decanted (where the strange waxiness and leafiness goes away), it does open up dramatically and mellow out to reveal that potential in the making with heaps and heaps of red fruit that's just rich, bold and very elegant, less of the jamminess and more vibrance and buoyancy of its body!