Wine Review: Bodega Noemia de Patagonia ‘A Lisa’ Semillon 2018

For today’s tasting David Allen MW, Wine-Searcher’s Wine Director tastes the first of a set of five wines from the most southerly region of Argentina, Patagonia. The wine is a Semillon labelled ‘A Lisa’, which is produced by Bodega Noemia in the Rio Negro region. The wine is from the 2018 vintage.

Bodega Noemia de Patagonia is an Argentine wine estate, located in the Rio Negro wine region of Patagonia. It is best known for red wines based on the Malbec grape variety.

Rio Negro is a desert region, some 1000 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, 450km east of the Andes, and 500km west of the Atlantic Ocean. The valley’s macroclimate is moderated by the Neuquén and Limay Rivers. These flow from the Andes and join to form the Rio Negro.
The valley itself is a glacial formation, 25km wide and 500km long. In the 1920s and 1930s, British settlers used the rivers to irrigate the area. Vineyards were first planted around this time.

Italian wine producer Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano and Danish winemaker Hans Vinding-Diers formed their estate when discovering one such plot of old Malbec vines in a remote corner of the Rio Negro Valley. Initially they bought the grapes from the owners, making their first wine in 2001 using fiberglass tanks and crushing by foot. The partners purchased the vineyard in 2004, and began to restore it.

Estate vineyards are certified organic and farmed according to biodynamic principals. Fruit is handpicked at dawn and transported directly to the winery. Here selection takes place on a berry by berry basis.

Fermentations take place in conventional concrete fermentation tanks, plus Nomblot eggs. The fermentations for the estate wines begin spontaneously thanks to ambient yeasts, but cultured yeasts are used for the ‘A Lisa’ wines. No sulfur or other additives are used. Juice and wines are usually moved by gravity, rather than pumps, to avoid micro oxygenation. Wines are matured in French oak barrels from the Surtep and Darnajou cooperages.

There are four red wines in the range, beginning with A Lisa. This is typically a 90:10 blend of Malbec and Merlot, sometimes including a dash of Petit Verdot. Fruit is sourced from leased vineyards and a plot in Valle Azul established in 2004. It is aged in a mix of old oak barrels and stainless steel.

J. Alberto is a single vineyard wine of 95 percent Malbec plus a little Merlot. It comes from a 4 hectare parcel planted in 1955 which is certified Organic and farmed biodynamically. It spends 11 months in one year old barrels.

Due (“2”) is a 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon bottling, from vineyards planted in the 1940s and restored in 2005. It is only sold in years when the crop of this grape variety is thought exceptional.

The top wine is simply called Bodega Noemia. It is made of Malbec from the original vineyard purchase; a 1.5ha parcel planted in 1932 from pre-phylloxera cuttings. It is aged mainly in new French barriques.

To find out more about this wine, its pricing and availability follow this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/noemia+de+a+lisa+semillon+rio+negro+patagonia+argentina/2018

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Hello there today I’m excited to be trying a white wine from Argentina specifically as Alisa seon 2018 from Bas Nima and we’re we’re here we’re in Patagonia so Argentina’s most souly wine producing region and the project here started in 2001 when two people somebody called Hans vending d a South African born

Danish wine maker teamed up with with compest mamia Maroni chinzan to try and Revitalize some um Vineyards originally planted here in 1932 these were malbeck Vineyards now pans vinding D is the son of Peter vinding ders who has a huge reputation as a wine maker first of all

As manager of chatau Rahul in in Bordeaux uh subsequently for wine making in Stellenbosch he was a partner in the Rejuvenation of the royal toai wine company and and has now in retirement as it were moved down to Sicily is revitalizing a wine estate there so

Hinting deers is is now in total control of of this state now the conditions in P Patagonia you have Vineyards with aluvial soils they’re around the Rio negro river which provides irrigation which prevents this area becoming desert because this is a cool dry area with constant strong wind

Which can make it challenging to grow grapes but does mean that there’s very little disease risk from fungal diseases because there’s very little humidity and they have a a a system of canals here about a century old or slightly more whereby the The Vineyards can be flooded

Up to four times a year using these these channels drawing water from the Rio negro River this particular wine Alis and there’s a red version as well is made from fruit that’s bought from growers in the area evidently the semon that goes into this is from vines that

Are about 40 years old so there a wonderful concentration and you get naturally quite low yields from these sort of aluvial free draining soils and the old Vines and the naturally sort of cool dry conditions this comes from I believe I’m correct in I said the main

Quit area and actually the bordega has an agricultural team that will go out and will work with the Growers to make sure that the fruit reaches the quality and the style which they’re looking for I know nothing about the wine making in this particular wine and I have to say

At 2018 I’m slightly dubious as to what sort of condition this is going to be in but we’ll we’ll see the first thing to say is there’s a real depth of color mean you can see it through the clear bottle here um you know that’s a fairly

Deep but yet quite bright and vibrant yellow color there the wine has 133% alcohol it’s not particularly forming tears on the side of the glass there no it’s it’s not it’s not particularly viscous in other words so let’s see what make of the Aromas shall

We the Aromas have a sort of a rich stone fruit note and and this seems to be the first hint of sort of creaminess but at the same time that’s all overlaid by a sort of a note of gunpowder of dry powdery Stone so always sort of like like sort of firework residue

Or hot dry granite or something like that very sort of Dusty dry Rock sort of notes over the top of this sort of riper fruit so anyway let’s taste and see what we make of it the Wine’s dry it’s a midweight there’s a nice balanced freshness there’s a sort of a lemony

Crispness on the front palette there is that of early ripeness sort of peach sort of note maybe some hints of melon there’s a roundedness that may be contributed to by the alcohol at 133% but there’s a ripeness and a roundness but it’s all quite subdued I was worried about

Whether the wine would have aged at all it seems to be aged very nicely there’s a freshness there’s not quite the sort of freshness you might get with a hunter River semi or something like that and they’re often picked with slightly lower alcohols than this to to retain that

Freshness however this does seem to be a wine that has managed to age fairly well so far in fact hasn’t developed enormously I I wonder whether it’s going to but I should imagine you could keep this wine for 3 or four years very happily it’s not a sort of a wine that

Particularly excit me in terms of its style however it’s well made the flavors are lasting well there’s a balance the alcohol’s in Balance the acidity is sufficient to lift the fruit there’s a a slight lemony touch and certainly plenty of minerality to the finish I’m wondering whe there’s a slight sine

Touch maybe but only very slightly there isn’t particularly a sort of a creamy Ley notee there aren’t notes of Oak so I’m assuming that this is a wine that’s either aged in concrete eggs or stainless steel and hasn’t particularly aged with its leaves either so it’s an

Interesting wine but but not one that I think I’ve completely got my head around there thank you very much for watching I hope you found the the video of interest if if you do uh please do like do share do feel free to join up and follow us on

On YouTube that would be fantastic to do if you have any comments do please leave them in the box below we’d love to hear what you think about either the wines the tastings we’re doing or anything else related to that most importantly though do please come and join us for

Another tasting in the very near future won’t you thanks again bye for now