2020 El Enemigo Chardonnay Mendoza Argentina 750 ml

We always know Alejandro Vigil’s El Enemigo Chardonnay will be outstanding. 

First, the 100-point winemaker helms the iconic Bodega Catena Zapata as his day job. Second, a significant percentage of this wine’s fruit comes from the Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary, where Catena makes a pair of $125 Chardonnays. 

So expectations are always high—yet the 2020 El Enemigo STILL blasted past them. 

James Suckling named this wine the #1 Chardonnay of his Top 100 Value Wines of 2022 and #5 wine overall, awarding it 96 points. He summed it up by calling it a “fantastic value”—which has to be the understatement of the year. 

Vigil stands out among an increasingly competitive Argentine wine community because of his relentless drive and fanatical attention to detail. There’s seemingly no labor he won’t undertake in pursuit of quality.

This Chardonnay is born from drama, yet emerges with elegance and grace. Grown on brutally harsh plots nearly a mile above sea level, the vines struggle through exceptionally rocky soils and fight off winds that can top 60 miles per hour. Nothing is easy—but the grapes that grow here produce wines with impressive character.

Vigil ferments and ages most of the juice in large, 500L casks, only a small portion of which are new. He also allows some of the barrels to develop flor—a thin layer of wild yeast—to coax out additional complexity, yet the wine remains bright and energetic. That’s a highly technical, difficult process, and a rarity among Argentine Chardonnays.

Composed yet mysterious, this Chardonnay’s flor origins are inextricable from its DNA—contributing a distinct savoriness—but don’t completely define it. It’s truly unique, and far more than the sum of its parts.