2021 Matias Riccitelli Vina Extrema Malbec (Los Chacayes)

Gosh, where do I even start. This is my new favorite Malbec. It's the best Malbec I've ever had. For me, it might be the perfect Malbec.

https://matiasriccitelli.com/producto/vino-de-los-chacayes/

I found out about Riccitelli some years ago. They're not common around where I am, so I have to purchase their wines online, but they've always delivered, and at a good price point. I've had a few of their wines. The Hey Malbec is maybe the easiest to find. In particular I recommend their Tinto de la casa Malbec, which has been a favorite of mine, delivering fresh juicy flavor. I fell in love with the Tinto de la Casa Malbec and bought a case.

Some people like a really plush chocolately malbec. Others want something more herbal. This isn't either of those.

What I like out of Malbec is the experience of biting into a giant juicy purple grape. I want to feel that explosion of juicy fruit flavor in my mouth. I want enough tannins to provide backbone, to give that crushing grape taste, but not enough to really distract me from the juicy fruit. Without enough tannins it doesn't taste "juicy" but I don't want to taste seeds or stems and I don't want to taste wood in a noticeable way. I'm not a wine expert. I am only writing this so you can understand where I'm coming from.

After my experiences with Riccitelli, and as I watched my last case of Tinto De La Casa Malbec disappear, I decided to just buy their highest rated Malbec, which was the Vina Extremas from Los Chacayes. The 2021 vintage looked good, so away we went, and I grabbed a case of of the highly rated 2021. It wasn't actually much more than the Tinto de la casa, but just difficult to find, as they're not super well distributed. It's not an expensive wine, just a bit of a niche wine.

Note: my bottle is different from the picture online, in that it says "Vino de Finca" at the bottom right instead of "Vina Extremas." Did I get the wrong bottle? I don't think so. After tasting it, I don't care.

We opened it last night side by side with a bottle of the Tinto de la casa. The Vina Extremas blew the 'house red' away.

This is an indigineous fermented Malbec, grown at 1500 meters of elevation in Los Chacayes in the Uco Valley. The soil "features a sandy top horizon with a subsoil of calcareous gravel." They hand harvested this in 20kg bins, apparently "gently," with hand sorting of the grapes prior to vinification. 70% were destemmed, with 30% whole clusters used in the pressing. Gravity fed and fermented in small concrete vats. Temperature between 26 and 28 degrees celsius. Multiple "gentle" punch downs to achieve "slow extraction." Aged 16 months in french oak foudres.

Decanted for just under an hour and poured back into the wine bottle to serve. I tasted it before decanting and it seemed a little closed.

Color is inky black, with a deep purple at the edge. Froth and aeration leads to long lasting bubbles and foam. Compared to the 2019 Tinto De La Casa it's a very similar color, maybe a bit more intensely purple, but the foam lasts a lot longer. Plenty of legs.

Nose is fresh and fruity. Slight leafy note.

Taste hits you immediately with mulberries, along with some dark intense plum, and fresh blackberries. I have a wild mulberry tree in my backyard, and this tastes a lot like the fresh dark mulberries. Tannins are slightly chalky but very fine and smooth. Nothing angular, nothing harsh.

My best description of the flavor is this feels like biting into a delicious juicy grape. When I taste this I think of intensely purple malbec grapes. This tastes like malbec grape clusters look. I feel I can even taste the sort of chalky/waxy looking blue bloom on the grapes at the end. The tannins are there just enough to make it taste juicy, to pull your cheeks in, but not enough to be noticeable in a bad way or distracting. They're a supporting character. I don't taste green stems or seeds or any green pepper or vegetal notes. There's a hint of leaves here but they are a background character. It tastes like purple.

There's just a tiny bit of baking chocolate in the finish (and some chalk). But this isn't a chocolate or vanilla bomb, the wine really tastes like fresh fruit and, again, juicy grapes. Maybe "juicy grape" is a silly tasting note, but I just keep coming back to it. I love this wine. It's just vibrant and delicious and full of energy. The acidity is perfect for me. I feel like I can almost taste gravel in the finish of this wine, imagining the ground its grown on.

It tastes ripe but I never get any sense of stewed fruit or jam or raisins. No port notes or anything overripe. It tastes like it was perfectly harvested at exactly peak ripeness where it has the acidity, but also the sugars, and it's all in balance. This is really pure and you are going to notice, in my opinion, exclusively that primary fruit note from the Malbec grapes.

I'm almost loathe to write or post this review because I want to buy all this wine and drink it myself. On the other hand, I feel compelled to share my feelings on this bottle of wine, I must evangelize the gospel, or good news of this bottle. I don't know, this got like 96 or 97 points online. I've had other wines with those ratings before. This stands out above and beyond those wines. I'm not great at ratings but I don't know if I will ever taste a better Malbec. I guess this, for me, is 100 points. Buy it all, drink it now.