2016 Malbec Felino

I tasted at Viña Cobos with winemaker Andrés Vignoni, who officially took over responsibility for winemaking in late 2017. Cobos was founded by American Paul Hobbs in 1998 with Andrea Marchiori and Luis Barraud, and after his original partners sold their shares, Hobbs is now a 50% partner with the Perez Companc family, which owns one of Argentina’s largest branded food companies. Cobos owns 90 hectares of vines, including 30 around their expansive new winery in Perdriel, Luján de Cuyo (Marchiori Estate), 4 in nearby Las Compuertas (Touza Vineyard) and their Los Arboles property in Uco Valley (Chañares Estate). They also have a 15-year contract on another 22 hectares in La Consulta, San Carlos (Rebon Estate) and purchase fruit from additional vineyards in which they take care of the viticulture. The Cobos line-up of wines is 100% estate fruit, with the purchased grapes going into their Felino and Cocodrilo labels, both of which typically offer outstanding value.

Vignoni told me that he likes “vertical wines with freshness.” He also emphasized that Hobbs has been intentionally harvesting earlier in recent years, as well as making better use of the canopy of leaves to protect the fruit. At the same time, Viña Cobos has decreased its percentage of new oak, focusing more on “cleanness of terroir and brightness of fruit.” In past years, as I tasted through Cobos’s high-end wines (especially their vineyard-designated Bramare bottlings and the top-of-the-line wines simply labeled “Cobos”), invariably there was a wine or two that struck me as a bit over-the-top in its ripeness. That is no longer the case here, and these rich, glossy bottlings are better than ever before.

I spoke briefly with Vignoni about the trio of rain-plagued vintages 2014 through 2016. Cobos, he said, had to treat their vines for botrytis and then harvest earlier in 2014, making extensive use of their sorting table. They benefited from this experience in 2015, a year that featured cool nights and nice days in March. Malbec performed very well in ’15, according to Vignoni, but conditions were more difficult for the late-ripening varieties, especially Cabernet Sauvignon, a variety that was even more challenging in 2016. The winery picked earlier in 2016 and thereby avoided rot, noted Vignoni. Partly for this reason, Cobos will offer a 2016 Volturno bottling after skipping it in vintage 2015. Incidentally, Cobos started harvesting Chardonnay quite early in the hotter 2017 growing season, on February 7 (Vignoni remembers the date because it was his birthday). He’s picking Chardonnay now at what he describes as "a moderate 23.5 to 24.5 degrees Brix."