Zuccardi Finca Piedra Infinita 2020.

Zuccardi Finca Piedra Infinita wines seek to highlight the concept of terroir and reveal the characteristics of the vineyards in the Uco Valley that make them unique and incomparable.

This vineyard is an extraordinary place, with an even more impressive landscape. No one had put his hands to work on these lands before. The producers of Paraje Altamira drew the border where the stone allowed them. They used to cultivate on the flattest and less stony areas, close to the town of La Consulta, because moving south and west meant venturing into the heart of the highest part of the alluvial fan of the Tunuyán River. It meant fighting against the stone.

We arrived there through intuition, driven by the landscape. And we faced that struggle with energy, but also with the humility of knowing that we were facing something infinite.We had to move more than a thousand trucks filled
with stones, to make room for the vines.It was the first step on a challenging path. Because cultivating this vineyard involves studying, working, knowing each row, each stone. Tirelessly exploring its immense diversity to be able to interpret it through the wine.

These Finca wines come exclusively from our family ́s estate vineyards.Finca Piedra Infinita is a Malbec, made from a careful selection of plots that grow on the shallower soils, so abundant in this vineyard. It is a true mountain wine.

Sebastián Zuccardi.

ORIGIN: Finca Piedra Infinita, IG Paraje Altamira, Valle de Uco, Mendoza. 1100 m | 3609 ft.

PAR AJE ALTAMIRA: It is located in the flat plain to the south of the source of the Tunuyán River, between 1,050 and 1,150 meters above sea level, and is situated at the highest part of the alluvial fan. This place has a cool temperate climate, with great thermal amplitude. Its soils are notable for the abundance of large granite stones and gravel covered with calcium carbonate, where enormous rocks weighing up to 20 tons can be found.

HARVEST: The 2020 was a very particular vintage, characterized by limited yields and a high speed of maturity, which made it one of the fastest and most challenging that we remember. The grapes from all areas and varieties arrived at the winery with unbeatable health and the highest quality. The wines generally show excellent aromatic complexity and great juiciness, texture and structure in the mouth.

They used more grapes from places with a little more soil and resistance to heat and dry conditions in a warmer year like 2020 for the 2020 Finca Piedra Infinita, which feels very young, primary and undeveloped. They have 46 separate plots in the vineyard, and in this early harvest, they started picking earlier than ever but during the harvest still felt they were too late; but the wines show much better than anticipated. Having the palette of wines to choose from helps in warmer years, when it's more difficult to keep the freshness in the wine, which for them is one of the most important things. It really feels very young and better than expected. They told me they learned a lot from 2017 to manage a year like 2020, when they do a shorter maceration (and in cooler years, they might do a longer maceration). This is gentler than the 2019, with rounder tannins. 8,500 bottles were filled in June 2021.

Reviewed by Luis Gutiérrez, Nov 30, 2022, The Wine Advocate.