The UnCorker

Weird Wine of the Week: Pulenta Estate Cabernet Franc Tardio 2004

March 18, 2009 | In WINE REVIEWS | No Comments

Is this Weird Wine? Hmm…. where to start.  First of all, botrytis cinerea, the fungus which in it’s benign form is called the “noble rot” and is responsible for some of the world’s finest sweet wines – is not supposed to make good red wines.  Botrytis feeds on the skins, where red wines get their tannins and flavor, robbing red grapes of their pigment and producing off-odors in the wine during maceration. Sweet cabernet franc is therefore more common in ice-wine country, such as Southern Ontario – where long growing seasons are combined with early freezing conditions in certain years and complex sweet wines can be made without the help of the fungus.  Secondly, at 980 metres above sea level near the city of Mendoza lies the Pulenta Estate, which is fine Argentinian wine country – dry as hell, with thin air, and perfect for ripening red grapes.   However, its not humid enough for botrytis. The fungus just doesn’t show up, preferring damp Burgundy ocean moisture or finicky Bordeaux microclimates to this land of open ranges and pantalooned gauchos.

Inducing botrytis in places where it doesn’t thrive on the vines is an ancient practice.  In dry Orvieto, they contrived humid conditions by moving grapes into special grottos carved out of volcanic stone – introducing the fungus post-harvest.  Pulenta Estate claims this wine is made using “forced climate” conditions, which is likely a more modern version of high-humidity environment – such as one of the modern drying rooms (sala di appisimento) used in the Veneto for Amarone.  Vinifying red wines with botrytis requires either a gentle maceration with a very low percentage of infected grapes,  or fermenting the infected grapes completely off the skins then infusing the wine with a dose of concentrated tannins from uninfected grapes to restore pigments and achieve a full flavor profile.  We suspect the latter here – as the wine doesn’t have any off odours or reduced color intensity that would imply fermentation on moldy skins.  In general, cabernet franc is a good choice for drying (which naturally increases the residual sugars in a grape) because it has high acidity and therefore never gets syrupy, cloying, and generally robitussin like.

However it’s made, the results are nothing short of spectacular.  This is late harvest 100% cabernet franc from a specialiast in that varietal, aged 40 months in French Oak.  Concentrated nose of herbs, cherry kirsch, green eucalyptus, and mint.  Dried red and black fruit on the palate, a feral mushroomy quality, hints of white pepper, and a finish that lasts for days, evolving eventually into sort of a carmel corn flavor.  This is heady, complex stuff, and should blow any superficial characerizations of what Argentinian wines are supposed to be out of the water.