2020 Zuccardi Poligonos Malbec Gualtallary Mendoza 750 ml

Sebastián Zuccardi is one of the shooting stars of Argentine wine, and his passion for terroir is contagious: He’s so obsessed that he constructed his winery from stones in his vineyards—plots that earned a “World’s Best Vineyard” nod from CNN in 2019.

His mad-scientist-level ethic also recently granted him a spot on Decanter’s list of South America’s Top 10 winemakers, and Wine Advocate called Zuccardi “clearly among the top wineries” of Argentina—and his 2020 Poligonos Malbec shows off why he’s such a talent. Purple-ruby with a dark core, offering a multilayered nose of black fruit, dried violets, cinnamon, cumin, and sandalwood, and serving up a fleshy palate showing tons of cassis, strawberry preserves, river rocks, purple flowers and spice, it’s a wine that delivers the best of the Gualtallary subregion .

The Zuccardi family was among the earliest pioneers to tap the stunning, high-altitude vineyards of Mendoza’s Uco Valley, where Gualtallary is now one of the most coveted locations to grow Malbec. It’s about as far west as you can plant vines before the steep mountain faces of the Andes rise to elevations inhospitable for agriculture. This extreme terrain, brought to its full potential by farming practices that have been tailored to its alluvial soils and cold climate, has since become famous for producing small berries that result in intense wines.

Living up to his “cement head” nickname, Sébastian fermented and aged this Malbec in concrete tanks, knitting together its array of intricate dark-fruit flavors without the intrusive influence of oak. “In the winery,” he told us on our visit, summing up his entire ethos, “we have to be very respectful of the work we did in the vineyard.”