Bodega Aleanna El Enemigo Cabernet Franc 2011

Adrianna Catena - Alejandro Vigil

Two romantics, a winemaker (Alejandro Vigil), and a historian (Adrianna Catena) - go back in time to capture an era when European immigrants recently settled in Argentina, sought to make wines as fine, and finer than those of their Homelands.

Bodega Aleanna London, September 18, 2009 - Alejandro Vigil and Adrianna Catena walked back from the Argentine Embassy in London, where Nicolas Catena had just received the Decanter Man of the Year Award among a group of dear friends from around the world.  The Thames was covered in mist as Adrianna began to tell Alejandro about the Great Fire of 1666, stories from another September night in London. Adrianna is an historian who recently completed her Ph.D. in History at Oxford University. Alejandro, a soils engineer, has been chief winemaker at Catena Zapata since 2002. They share a mutual fascination with the writers Dostoyevsky and Cortázar, a passion for the Hellenic Philosophers (and heirloom tomatoes), a love of used books, live music, and long meals with old friends, and a deep, obsessive dedication to their young families - Adrianna's son Antonio and Alejandro's daughter Maria Giuliana Francesca are the same age.  On that walk, Alejandro and Adrianna decided to make a wine together, a wine that would represent their deep respect for history and tradition, and their complete irreverence towards the status quo.

El Enemigo Cabernet Franc 2011 The 2011 El Enemigo Cabernet Franc is a little bit of the reverse blend of the Malbec, as it packs 92% Cabernet Franc and 8% Malbec also from Gualtallary in Tupungato in the Uco Valley. However, this is sourced from plots planted with 10,000 plants per hectare on schist soils. Very little SO2 was used in the production of this wine. It has some notes of black fruit and violets, but remains closed, austere, lineal and straight with very high acidity. It is very much about the soil, not much about the fruit, but its youth is revealed in the notes of the elevage that are still there: that is cedar wood, peat and graphite. Summarizing, this is an austere, serious, long, tight red that has great potential to age. Drink 2015-2020.  Aleanna is a combination of the names Alejandro Vigil and Adrianna Catena, (winemaker and youngest daughter) of Nicolas Catena and is the name given to their small joint venture. El Enemigo (The Enemy) is the name of the wines produced here, some of which are almost experimental and offered in limited quantities. All the wines were initially fermented in oldbarriques and old wood vats to avoid excessive influence of the oak in the wines, but they are now moving toward cement vats without epoxy lining and aging in used 225-liter barrels and in 4,000-liter, 100-year-old foudres. eRobertParker.com #212 Rating: 92 Drink: 2015-2020 .