Nose

Medium to high intensity nose that shows nicely melted and assembled the Malbec varietal flavors, including fruits like black plums, blackberry, cassis and cherries, spices like the black pepper and flowers like the violet, with the aging notes of black chocolate, toasted sugar, strawberries dipped in chocola- te, tobacco and all followed by a mineral note given by the calcareous sandy soil leaving and a slightly touch of dry vine leaf, typical terroir note of Valle de Uco Malbec.

Palate

In the mouth acidity, volume and sweet melted tannins show balanced, leaving and after taste for 6 to 8 seconds that recalls the cassis.

Growing Conditions

2012 vintage has proved, once again, the amazing conditions of Mendoza for grape growing, how it has been blessed with a unique terroir and, in particular, the emplacement of Finca Ferrer, in the Valle Uco, from 1.250 to 1.300 m.s.n.m.

In a year characterized by the adverse climatic conditions, all over the region, as drought for two years in a row, first time ever in Mendoza, Zonda wind at flowering time and late frost (both problematic for early varieties as Chardonnay) , hailstone (quite hard on the East Region) some heavy rains and very hot days (over 40oC) along summer, all together has caused a yield drop from 10 to 50%, depending on the area and variety, but at the same the fruit respond excellent to uncer- tainty, helped with some patience to achieve nice maturity, intensity, complexity and balance.

Harvest

At Finca Ferrer, harvest started 10 days in advance, in average, from 2011, being the date for Chardonnay the 13th of February followed of Pinot Noir. After a couple of gaps, red varieties restarted on the 13th of March with Tempranillo and the 26th of March Malbec, focusing on a full, nice and optimum phenolic maturity

Winemaking

• 100% Malbec, a secondary variety in Bordeaux blends, that has found in Argentina the perfect environment for a fully expression of its character. • Harvest went though from 20th of March until 20th of April.

• Hand-harvested grapes with yields of 7 to 8 tons per hectare, from 10 year old blocks.

• Carried to the winery in 450 kg bins.

• Sorting table.

• Full berries in to the tank and 72 hours of cold soak.

• 10% bleeding.

• Fermented in stainless steel vessels to capture the variety’s aromatics and bright fruit flavors at a maximum of 25oC, with three pump over per day until sugar level can be considered as dry wine. 3 volumes on first 48 hours and 2 volumes pumped over from start to a density of 1020 and 1 volume below 1020 density.

• 24 days of total maceration (skin contact), including fermentation

• A blend of tanks fermented with different indigenous and Saccha- romyces yeast is used for the final wine.

Aging

• 85% (2012) aged for 7 months with French oak staves, medium and medium plus toast and 15% (2011) aged for 14 months in French new oak barrels.

Appearance

Dark, intense and deep cherry color, bright and clean, with purple tones and lilac hints, well integrated colored legs.

Food Pairing

Perfect match for all sort of meat, as well Argentinean medium body Malbec, either roasted or companied by a Malbec reduction sauce, mushroom sauce, prune or plum sauce, as well as roasted fish, even giving the possibility to match with a light chocolate dessert.