WHAT I’VE LEARNED | Sebastián Zuccardi
Zuccardi is a stalwart of Argentinian wine, and was in a large way responsible for the Malbec boom of the millennium. But over the last decade, it has undergone an astonishing evolution, led by the third generation of the family, Sebastián Zuccardi, who has a different view of what Mendoza Malbec should be…
‘Fifteen years ago, Argentinian Malbec was big, ripe, alcoholic and oaky. It was too much, and we wanted to change that. That meant planting more wines at altitude, on stony soils, using whole-bunch fermentation – and moving away from oak.’
‘We experimented with various ageing vessels – old oak foudres, concrete, stainless steel. I fell in love with concrete straightaway, and our Piedra Infinita winery that we opened in 2016 has 172 concrete vats and not a single oak barrel.’
‘Concrete doesn’t give any flavour to the wine – it doesn’t put any ‘make-up’ on the wine. It allows the wine to taste of its place. There’s no hiding place and no margin for error.’
‘My father never asked me how I thought the market would react. He knew the commercial team wanted to kill me though, because our old style was very successful. But he just said, “You do what you think is right.”
‘Maybe if I was working for a company that wasn’t family-owned, I wouldn’t have had that freedom. If you’re a CEO, you’re always looking for a return on investment. The power in those companies is held by the financial and logistics teams. Family companies can take a longer view.
‘My grandfather [who founded the company] was an industrial engineer. He developed irrigation channels for vineyards, and that’s how he discovered wine. He fell in love with it, and it became his second career. Actually, he had a third career. When my brother became interested in olive oil, my grandfather helped him plant olive trees when he was 84.
‘At Piedra Infinita, we are 1,400m above sea level. Here, we make mountain wines. Higher altitude makes for more interesting wines, in my view – it gives purity.
‘No matter where I am, I always know where the Andes are. I know where they are before I wake up. They’re integral to everything we do – the water, the altitude, the sunlight…
‘We’ve had lots of offers to make wine in Europe and elsewhere, with partners, but for me, you need to be near to the vines. Sometimes I sleep in my truck, in the vineyard.
‘Today, lots of wineries say on the label that their wine is fresh and light, but you have to have the vineyards for that.
‘If you’d have told me ten years ago that we’d be selling wines for $300, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Sebastián Zuccardi will present a masterclass on The New Face of Mendoza Malbec at the London Club on Wednesday 1st May
TWO
MINUTES
WITH |
Marimar
Torres
ON
THE
ROAD |
Paul
Richards
UNDER
THE
SURFACE |
Australia’s
fine-wine
ambitions