Cheval des Andes

Cheval des Andes is Cheval Blanc's Argentine venture — founded in 1999 with Terrazas de los Andes to ask what the Saint-Émilion estate's blending culture could make of Mendoza's high-altitude Malbec. The answer is a single grand vin each vintage, drawn from old ungrafted Malbec at Las Compuertas in Luján de Cuyo, planted in 1929 at around 1,100 meters, and Cabernet Sauvignon and further Malbec from Paraje Altamira in the Uco Valley. The winemaking is unmistakably Bordelais — meticulous plot selection, patient blending, restrained oak — while the material is unmistakably Andean: violet-scented, dense, and fresh off the mountain air. The result reads as neither claret nor classic Mendoza Malbec, which is precisely the point.