Argentina’s Achaval Ferrer launches its first white wine blend

Premium Argentine wine estate Achaval Ferrer – famous for its single vineyard Malbecs –  is launching the first white wine blend in its 20-year history.

The new Achaval Ferrer Quimera Blanco, which will launch in the UK in January, is a blend of 63% Chardonnay, 23% Sémillon, 10% Viognier, 4% Sauvignon Blanc, which are all sourced from across the Uco Valley.

Achaval Ferrer’s winemaker Gustavo Rearte told the drinks business that the launch of the white wine under the Achaval Ferrer Quimera label – which until now has been a premium blended red wine brand – ends a period of rebranding following the addition of a new property to the portfolio in 2019 (Achaval Ferrer is part of ultra-premium wine group Tenute del Mondo). This winery was rebranded as ‘Quimera’ (or chimaera), the mythical creature that has a head of a lion, body of a goat and a tail of a snake and represents a wild and dazzling animal which is more than the sum of its constituent parts. The brand was the ideal choice to expand into white wine because it was “the only wine [brand] where we could play on the technical winemaking side”, Rearte explains.

The project started in 2020, with Achaval Ferrer working with a selection of its grape producing partners – many of whom it has been working with for 10-20 years – to identify suitable parcels of white varieties that could be crafted into a “perfect white wine” in line with Achaval Ferrer Quimera’s brand goals and the over-arching Achaval Ferrer ideology. After the initial experimentation, the Chardonnay was carefully selected from a site in Gualtallary, the Sémillon from Peral, Tupungato, and the Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc from Chacayes in South Uco.

After harvest, the Chardonnay and Viognier are fermented gently at low temperatures and aged for around 10 months in French oak barrels – the Chardonnay in 20% French new oak, the remainder rest in second and third use barrels, while the Viognier is aged in 100% second use barrels.

“We only use barrel for the malolactic fermentation and tried to work on the mid-palate and the second and third aromas coming,” Rearte explains.

The barrel ageing gives a second level of complexity he noted, but the Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc are fermented in stainless steel tank to enhance their freshness, verticality and typicity.

The wines were blend at the end of the year and bottled in December or January.

“For us the most exciting idea of this wine was how to represent and blend the white varietals to create the perfect wine,” Rearte explains. “We have tried to blend these four varieties with each one showing its own personality from its own soils, in the blend.”

It is, he says, a “perfect combination, with the citrus and fresh aspect of Chardonnay, the intensity and vertical clay of the Sémillon, the sweet and characteristic texture of Viognier, and the freshness from the Sauvignon Blanc.”

For Rearte, the best part has been working on the blend. “We really enjoyed how 1% of one varietal changed the characteristic of the wine. In this case, 63% of Chardonnay gives the citrus, and freshness, the fruit but also the butter aspect in the middle palate – even though it is not a heavy wine like a Californian Chardonnay – but it gives another leaf on the tasting note.

It is, he adds, “a very complex wine, very drinkable” but one that is likely to evolve with age, due to the 63% of Chardonnay, which gives “a lot of dry fruit notes in the aroma-side – and it’s going to evolve for that nice Chablis style, but we’ll see!”

2021 was a very good vintage for white wine, but Rearte admits the team were lucky to get the harvest in before heavy rain in February.

“It was a very interesting vintage as the quality and quality and characteristics of each variety was very clear clarity – the freshness and intensity of the aromas giving a very complex wine in the blending,” Rearte said.

Ideally, Achaval Ferrer Quimera Blanco will be produced every year, “but if are not feeling 100% with the quality, we won’t release it,” Rearte added.

Gastronomic wine

The addition of the white gives a full portfolio of blends, with the Achaval Ferrer Quimera Blanco and Achaval Ferrer Quimera Red, “and any  other red blends of Quimera that will follow in coming years,” Rearte adds.

Initially, Achaval Ferrer Quimera Blanco was only intended for the domestic, but a couple of months before it was released, requests started to come in from Europe, particularly the UK, but also from Asia, Rearte explains, leading the team to releases around a third of the total 8,500 bottles to the international on-trade.

“We believe this wine has a very gastronomic approach due to the freshness and intensity of the blend and that helps us to get into that trade,” Rearte explained. “That can be hard with the rest of the portfolio as they can be intense, even though they have a high freshness on maturation – but these type of white wines can be friendly with the new wave of Asia or spicy food which are very strong in the trade right now.”

Mercedes Castellani, marketing director at Tenute del Mondo Wine Group, argues that the stakes are high for the new wine. “ When Achaval Ferrer launched back in 1998, we got 5 stars from Decanter, so even from the first wines that were launched, that set us up in the radar. That’s why [then distributor] Corney & Barrow called, wanting to have our wines in the UK.”

“So for us, launching the first white wines in the UK, it was very import in the history of Achaval Ferrer and we wanted to start on the right foot – we had 96 points from James Suckling which is very important for us,” she said. “The motto we have for Quimera is ‘the quest for perfection’, which is the meaning of the word ‘Quimera’.”

Achaval Ferrer Quimera Blanco will be available in the UK from January from Jeroboams Trade and Jeroboams Shops.