Mendel Unus Lujan de Cuyo 2021

Mendel is an old bodega situated at Drummond, Mendoza, built in 1928 and which was bought by the Sielecki family in 2002. They employed the highly respected Roberto de la Mota to make the wines. The wines are quite European in style, firm and structured as opposed to the more usual soft and fruity style, and are designed to develop in bottle. These wines are best enjoyed with food and benefit from decanting 30 minutes before drinking.

Mendel have a number of excellent vineyards. Finca Mendel surrounds the bodega at about 900m of altitude in Mayor Drummond was planted in 1928 to malbec at the old density of about 5,000 vines per hectare, quite high by modern standards, and excellent for quality. They are interspersed with olive trees. The fruit of this vineyard goes into their Malbec bottling. Recently a massale selection of petit verdot from Château Margaux has been planted here.

At Perdriel, Finca de los Andes is situated at about 1,100m and planted to malbec in 1928, with some cabernet planted about 20 years ago. The malbec and cabernet go into the Unus bottling.

In the cool Altamira district to the south of Mendoza they are buying semillon and malbec thought to be about 70 years old. The semillon goes into the varietal bottling while the lovely floral, mid-weight, exquisite malbec is bottled as Finca Remota, a play on words mingling its remote location with Roberto de la Mota's surname.