Zarate Balado 2022

94+ pts Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2022 Balado, quite similar in soil and vine age as the Palomar, has the sensation of the granite soils. It's a powerful Albariño with 13.5% alcohol, and it didn't go through malolactic, as they thought the wine had the balance without it and the extra acid makes the wine more balanced with the riper fruit. It's clean, tasty and quite drinkable already. 4,600 bottles were filled in May 2023. This is the first of the single-vineyard wines to be bottled. - Luis Gutierrez

This wine is from two parcels of ungrafted vines, planted in the 1950’s in a Clos (or Balo in the local dialect). Here, there is only about 40-60 cm of topsoil over a bedrock of solid granite. Vinification is in steel tank, and malolactic fermentation is blocked. As such, this is often the most taught, chiseled and mineral-driven in the line-up, and can often require some bottle age to reveal its full potential.  Vinification takes place in stainless steel with wild yeast. The wine is aged on the gross lees for 3-6 months and then on the fine lees for 6 months