Catena Zapata Red Blend Nicolas Catena Zapata 2021 750ml

#27 in Top 100 Wines of Argentina, 2024. Sweet tobacco, cigarbox, berries and minerals. It gets a little zesty and citrusy on the nose. Really refined and juicy on the palate with a lot of fine tannins. Silky, fluid and linear with very elegant, soft-spoken finish. 46% Cabernet Sauvignon from Adrianna vineyard and 44% Malbec and 10% Cabernet Franc from Nicasia vineyard. Really refined, long, and Bordelais. This is already drinking well, but it will hold like this for a long time.

The 2021 Nicolás Catena Zapata was produced with a blend of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 44% Malbec and 10% Cabernet Franc from Nicasia and Adrianna vineyards. It fermented in small oak barrels, concrete and stainless steel tanks and matured in 2,000-liter oak foudres for 18 months. It's a powerful but fresh red with 13.7% alcohol and mellow acidity, perhaps because the Cabernet Sauvignon was picked earlier (and with lower yields) and they discarded the clay soils and went more for stony plots. The wine feels more streamlined and elegant. 2021 is a cool and very good year, following the path of the 2019, and the wine shows the classical herbal and spicy character of the Bordeaux varieties with pungent notes of black peppercorns and is spicier because of the high Cabernet Franc content. 64,200 bottles produced. It was bottled in November 2022.

Rated 96 - Nicolás is a finely crafted blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, 44% Malbec and 10% Cabernet Franc from Fernando Buscema, showcasing the contrasting terroirs of Gualtallary and Paraje Altamira. Appealingly international in style, it has lovely cigar box and coffee bean oak, layers of mint, violet and tarragon, granular, fine-bones tannins and harmonious chocolate, blackberry and blackcurrant leaf flavours. - Tim Atkin