Mauricio Lorca Poético Mendoza Malbec 2023

High up in the Uco Valley in Mendoza, is a small area called Los Arboles, where you’ll find Mauricio’s Malbec vineyard. I’ve been there and believe me - it’s in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But it’s an incredibly special place to grow vines... The altitude is 1,250m, so you get very hot days and really cold nights. This temperature fluctuation is great for producing grapes with intense flavour and freshness It’s very dry - Mendoza is basically a desert. They get only 200mm of rain per year, and the soils are sandy and stony and don’t retain water. So Mauricio can control precisely the amount of water the vines need through irrigation from nearby melted Andes snow The final bit which Mauricio can’t quite put his finger on… the shoots in the vineyard are red, not green. Usually you get the odd red shoot in a vineyard but in this Los Arboles vineyard, 90% of the shoots are red. He has no idea why but they go on to produce amazingly flavoured grapes. Mauricio takes this special raw material and gives it the Rolls Royce treatment it deserves in the winery - finishing it with 12 months in French and American oak, and a year-and-a-half ageing in bottle. You end up with an intense, spicy, smooth Malbec, typical of the region made by one of the country’s best.