2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Signature

Susana Balbo, who recently stepped down from her role as a congresswoman in order to take a position as W20 Chair for Argentina's G20 Summit this year in Buenos Aires at the request of Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri, reported that the 2017 growing season brought good quality but low quantities, as light frost on October 13 affected the fruit set in some Uco Valley sites and in low spots on the valley floor in Luján de Cuyo as well. But the growing season was then good and harvest conditions were favorable, she added, with some light rainfall. Her 2017 whites stood out for their sappiness and definition.

Still, 2017 was not a hot year. In fact, vintage 2018 was the first really warm growing season since 2012, she told me, with temperatures particularly high in January. Balbo described 2016 as “a very difficult, challenging, wet year” but she used a very expensive anti-botrytis spray (at a cost, she said, of about $3,000 per hectare) and maintained that she didn’t bring any rotten grapes into her winery.