Altar Uco - "Edad Moderna" White, Gualtallary, Argentina (2021)

TASTING NOTES

This is still very young and a little reductive, very pale and tight. The profile is serious and austere, with a textured, vibrant and long, salty finish. Classic Sauvignon Blanc notes of grass, lime and jalapeño, but a bit more weight and acid finish from the chenin blanc. 

Altar Uco is the latest endeavor from Maia Echegoyen (viticulturalist) and Tupungato-based winemaker Juan Pablo Michelini. Affectionately known as Juampi, he also serves as the head winemaker at his family’s winery, Zorzal.

Juampi aims to produce “quiet wines” which require as little human intervention as possible. “Altar Uco is a continuous and eternal project. A constant search to achieve even more pure and delicate expressions of the terroir, which includes not only the place where the grapes are grown, but also, and perhaps the most significant for us, man’s interpretation of that place.” 

The ‘Edad Moderna’ (Modern Age) series are wines defined by their shorter time in the winery, aged briefly in cement pools and then bottled. Here, he’s striving for lively, textured wines meant for enjoyment in their youth. A further line with in the brand (‘Edad Media’ [Middle Age]) are wines matured in a mixture of French oak barrels (some new and some second-use) in addition to amphora.

The 2021 Edad Moderna Blanco is a blend of 70% Sauvignon Blanc (from Gualtallary) and 30% Chenin Blanc (from an old vineyard in Vila Seca). The full clusters were pressed and the juice fermented in concrete egg with indigenous yeasts and matured in those eggs for eight months.