“The only way to build a wine is by making fewer bottles than the market needs”

Success on La Place’s Hors Bordeaux campaign is a way to build brands and boost access for wineries, but as Sebastián Zuccardi, owner/winemaker at Argentina’s Familia Zuccardi, says, you cannot afford to be complacent. Arabella Mileham reports.

Zuccardi was in London to present the two wines that are available on La Place: Finca Canal Uco, a single-vineyard Malbec expression from Paraje Altamira in the Uco Valley; and El Camino de Las Flores 2025, a high altitude non-malolatic Chardonnay from Monasterio in Tupungato, which is aged entirely in concrete vessels. Its inaugural release last year came out to great acclaim – db’s Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay declared himself “an instant fan”, calling it “vibrant, racy and brilliantly crystalline” and awarding it 96 points.

These two wines are in small production (the El Camino de Las Flores 2025 numbers only 2,000 bottles) represented now by five negociants on La Place. “We are not looking for volume on La Place, it’s not why we are there, we are trying to access areas where our distribution is not arriving,” Zuccardi says. Argentina, for example, is not very strong in Asia, but the negociants’ market capillarity gives brand access to regions across Asia that could not otherwise be penetrated (although it now has a representative based in Hong Kong working across Asia, two in the US, one in Brazil and one in London).

And while many people have built a big business through La Place, over the last three years, there’s no doubt business has become more complicated, which he admits is worrying. Bordeaux’s “crazy” unsustainable price rises during and immediately after the pandemic not only resulted in the present market malaise but also fuelled negociants to take on a great number of wines from outside Bordeaux.

“I think the negociants took too much, but now there will be a curve, and it will stabilize,” Zuccardi shrugs. “The only way to build a wine is by making less bottles than the market needs – if you make one bottle more than the market needs you start talking about price.” “And I want to grow slowly and I don’t want to reduce the prices.”

It also takes time to understand the system.

“When we started, I thought, ‘I have to put the wines in their stocks and they will do everything’, but they do the distribution, but they don’t do the brand building, so you need to do work doing tastings,” he explains. “La Place helps to open doors, but you need to work, you need to go to the market, you need to be doing presentations,” he adds. “My passion is the vineyard and the winery, but today that is not enough. We have to go out and bring the message.”

It is, he argues a form of evangelisation.

“Evangelise, evangelise, evangelise! It’s important because we are far [away] and not many people know the unique conditions that we have in the area. So, bringing the message [to them] is also important.”

This is particularly the case where consumers have a fixed idea of Malbec from Argentina as very concentrated, black in colour, with a lot of oak. “But this is [only] one version of Malbec today,” Zuccardi says. “In the Uco Valley, you can see that many producers are not working like this – and we need to change the image of that for people. But this is a work that takes time.”

“For many years, people thought that Malbec was a grape that was good for young wines. My feeling is that when it’s coming from very good places, and we try to avoid overripe, over extraction, and overdraw, the aging potential is very long.” For Zuccardi, Malbec “is the best vehicle to express our places”, likening it to Nabbiolo in Barolo or Pinot Noir in Burgundy.

“I like to say that we make mountain wines. Everything that happened in our area is in relationship with the mountain,” he says. It is the the rivers flowing down from the Andes that created the unique alluvial soils (granite covering by calcaire) the multitude of stones encouraging deep roots. It is also the reason for the cool temperatures and high sun exposure, which results in the slow maturation of the grapes.

“We cultivate in a quite unique condition that is a cold climate with a very pure sunlight. I like to say that our wine has to talk about the freshness of the altitude and the intensity of the light and the management of the light is very important.”

Additional Tasting notes by Colin Hay

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2013 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 1100 metres on the southern slopes of the Uco valley on the start of the alluvial fan; aged in 500 litre used oak14.5% alcohol). Big, bold, bloody and rich, certainly in comparison with the rather more ethereal recent vintages. And incredibly youthful. Plump and ample in frame, if a little closed at first. But that allows the stone fruit and, above all, the spicier elements to come through aromatically. The rose petals notes that in time become the central focus appear in the glass only later with a little gentle aeration. The wonderfully expressive limestone tannins bring massive grip to the mid-palate, wrestling the fruit to the tight and tense finish. Fresh, vivid, bright and crisp – if in fact rather more so on the palate than aromatically. Youthful and almost a little strict on the finish, this has considerable aging potential still. 93.

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2016 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 1100 metres on the southern slopes of the Uco valley on the start of the alluvial fan; 14.5% alcohol; only 30% oak aged; vinified in concrete). A cool and comparatively wet vintage that really sorts the wheat from the chaff. It is gorgeous here and immediately captivating aromatically. Unlike the 2013, there’s no aromatic trace of the oak and that allows it to reveal immediately a lovely redolent bulbly florality that is the signature of the entire flight of wines here. In the mouth this is gracious, full and quite ample in frame. And here we find the beginning of the familiar crystallinity that is the Zuccardi calling card in the more recent vintage. Incredibly fresh once again, distinctly sapid on the finish and deceptively youthful. 95.

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2019 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 1100 metres on the southern slopes of the Uco valley on the start of the alluvial fan; 14% alcohol). A great vintage and a very complete and composed wine. This is tight and compact, with a less ample frame but massive intensity and mid-palate density and concentration. The Zuccardi style that I recognise and love from the 2021, 2022 and 2023 is already present here, albeit now with a little more bottle maturation. The earlier vintages do not have quite the same finesse. Indeed, there’s a very rare, radiant purity to this. Loganberry, a little red cherry, with perfectly bright and crunchy berry fruits. Floral and herbal in equal measure and with those lovely beady limestone tannins. Ethereal, juicy and succulent with great finesse despite the density. Lifted and aerial, this finishes very much at the top of the palate. Supremely harmonious and fresh on the silken finish. Truly wonderful. 97.

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2020 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 14.5% alcohol). A warm vintage, small in quantity, high in extract and relatively early picked. This is elegant, refined, subtle and finessed. It’s a little more intimate perhaps than the 2019, but no less aerial and lifted aromatically, the verticality from those gracious limestone tannins a little more apparent here than in the more ample vintages either side. There’s perhaps a little more fruit intensity than with the 2021. Very long and pure on the finish. Lithe, pure and very vertical in its aromatic presentation, this feels every inch a wine from a high altitude limestone terroir, as indeed it is. I love both the florality and the visceral intensity of the crushed raspberry and loganberry fruit, which is what this wine is all about. Lifted aromatically and tight on the palate with lots of purity and precision. Very fine. A most eloquent expression of its terroir. 96.

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2021 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 14.5% alcohol). An excellent harvest. Cooler, not unlike the 2022, but a little drier. Intensely expressive and intensely floral aromatically, this is very vertical and aerial too. The parfumier’s essences of lilac and wild rosemary waft from the glass with a little dark purple peony too. Gracious and glowing, elegant and very fluid this has a wide and ample mouthful of fresh fruit juice pushing at the cheeks. Saline, with liquorice notes building towards the pleasingly sustained and sapid finish. Staggeringly fresh and incredibly vivid, with a pure, rippling, pulsating fruit signature, elongated by the gentle massage of the limestone tannins. Brilliantly juicy and electric. 96.

Finca Canal Uco (Zuccardi) 2022 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 14.5% alcohol). Beeswax and candlewax that I noted a year ago and now again almost exactly a year on. This is a little more substantial than the 2021 and maybe a little less immediately tense, with greater density and mid-palate concentration. The fruit is darker in shade and more intense still – assorted plump berries with a little damson and damson stone. There’s maybe a hint of walnut too and an almost Bordeaux-esque cassis and cedar combination. This is beguilingly composed with a very shapely spherical core outlined by the ultra-soft and fine-grained tannins. A wine of plunge-pool purity that is almost Pichon Comtesse-like in texture, but with Argentinian zing, spice and florality. Truly excellent. 97.

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