Cara Sur Criolla Chica White Horse

Cara Sur is bringing some of the oldest vines in Argentina back to the forefront. This bottling is 100% Criolla Chica (otherwise known as País in Chile, or Mission in California) from 80 year-old vines in San Juan.The grapes are partially destemmed and fermented in concrete before aging in large vats for eight months. Think of this wine like an Argentinian “pipeño” bright, pale, and dangerously easy to drink. On the nose are notes of rose petal, rooibos tea, and wild cherry, and the palate has just a hint of tannin, juicy cherry and cranberry, with a crisp, tart finish. Enjoy this with a slight chill.

*Natural and Organic

2020 Vintage Scores:

The 2020 Criolla was harvested the first week of March and fermented with foot-trodden 30% full clusters in concrete eggs with indigenous yeasts. The élevage was in egg and lasted some eight months. This is incredibly pale, paler than any other wine here; it looks like a rosé, and the wine is ethereal, floral and flinty. In 2020, the grapes from the La Totora vineyard were added here, as the wine was not produced on its own, so that could be one of the changes here. There was a very soft extraction, a long infusion with no movement of the skins. The palate is light, and there are some fine-grained tannins but none of the rusticity the grape is able to deliver. Superb. This is still very young and should develop nicely in bottle. 5,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in October 2020.