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More wines available from El Enemigo
750ml
Bottle:
$20.89
A deep, stony, mineral bonarda with red cherries, blue fruit, graphite and some grilled herbs. Tight and juicy on the...
750ml
Bottle:
$21.90
$23.20
Against all odds, the 2020 Cabernet Franc, from a warm and dry year, feels fresher and more harmonious than the two...
750ml
Bottle:
$94.94
$109.94
The 2019 Gran Enemigo Agrelo Single Vineyard shows the completeness of the vintage, a year with good yields and a...
750ml - 1 Bottle
Bottle:
$73.66
Such impressive, rich aromas of berries, cherries and plums with blackberries and violets, too. An enticing fusion of...
750ml
Bottle:
$95.84
$104.80
Blueberries, blackcurrants, hot stones, tobacco leaves, dried lavender, walnuts and cracked pepper on the nose....
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Winery
El Enemigo
Vintage: 2012
2012 has, so far been a positive year for wineries around the world. While it may be a little too early to speak of the wines being made in the northern hemisphere, European and North American wineries have already begun reporting that their harvesting season has been generally very good, and are predicting to continue with the kind of successes they saw in 2011. However, 2012 has been something of a late year for France, due to unpredictable weather throughout the summer, and the grapes were ripening considerably later than they did in 2011 (which was, admittedly, an exceptionally early year). French wineries are claiming, though, that this could well turn out to be advantageous, as the slow ripening will allow the resulting wines to express more flavour and features of the terroir they are grown in.
The southern hemisphere has seen ideal climatic conditions in most of the key wine producing countries, and Australia and New Zealand particularly had a superb year, in particular with the Bordeaux varietal grapes that grow there and which love the humidity these countries received plenty of. Also enjoying a fantastic year for weather were wineries across Argentina and Chile, with the Mendoza region claiming that 2012 will be one of their best vintages of the past decade. Similar claims are being made across the Chilean wine regions, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon had an especially good year. These two grape varietals also produced characterful wines on the coastal regions of South Africa this year.
Varietal: Cabernet Franc
Today, Cabernet Franc is one of the most widely planted grape varietals in the world, and thrives well in temperate climates and valley regions in many Old and New World countries. Its importance in wine history cannot be overstated – as one of the key ingredients for the magnificent Bordeaux and Bordeaux-style wines, it has helped shape the world of quality wines and raise the bar for vintners across the globe. The Cabernet Franc varietal lends its wonderful array of unusual, spicy and fruity aromas to blended wines, and yet can also carry itself very well in single variety bottles too. The bright red color of the fermented Cabernet Franc juices make this an elegant varietal, packed full of delightfully intense, rich flavors of currants, and perfumes of violets and tobacco.
Region: Cuyo
Situated in and around the Andean mountains, the Cuyo region of Argentina has long been associated with the best of the country's wine industry. Including now world famous provinces such as Mendoza and La Rioja, Argentina's Cuyo region has something of an ideal environment for the cultivation of high quality grapes – including Argentina's flagship varietal, the Malbec – which includes the beautiful Desaguadero River and its tributaries. Although the region itself is quite dry and arid, the soils have a remarkably high mineral content, and plenty of iron which gives it the distinctive red color associated with Cuyo. For several decades now, wineries in Cuyo have been booming, as more and more of the global wine audience begin to recognize the region's remarkable potential for rich and flavorful wines.
Country: Argentina
Anyone who has been the Mendoza area of Argentina may be surprised to find that this is one of the primary wine regions of the country, now comfortably sitting as the fifth largest producer of wine in the world. The Mendoza is an incredibly dry and arid desert, which receives as little as two hundred millimeters of rainfall per year, and supports very little life at all. We can thank the ancient technologies of the Huarpes Indians for Argentina's current booming wine trade, as they managed to irrigate the region by digging channels from the Mendoza river, thus creating an area which had enough access to water with which to grow vines. Not only this, but the grape which Argentina primarily uses for their wines – Malbec – actually flourishes in such conditions, as it is less likely to suffer from the rot it so often finds in the considerably damper regions of Europe it has its origins in. Such expertise and foresight has resulted in Argentina being able to produce high quality wines of both red and white types, with Malbec, Bonarda and Cabernet Sauvignon dominating the vineyards for red wines, and Torrontés, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc making up for most of the white wine produced there.