Subtle aromatic herbs, rocky austerity, sage and underbrush on the nose. This is really precise, with thin, delicate fruit. It’s savory and almost severe, with so much tension and fine-grained, focused tannins. It’s compelling in its precision. It benefits from aeration. This comes from a vineyard in Altamira planted at 1,100 meters. Drink or hold.
The sheer pedigree of the 2022 Finca Piedra Infinita manages to overcome its youthful nature, yielding a wine that approaches the mesmerizing complexity of the duo of single-parcel bottlings from the same site. It slowly reveals itself with a coiled, contained nose of increasingly intense floral aromas and a red- and black-fruited core, followed by a taut, sculpted mouthfeel that oozes measured richness yet never veers from the finesse and restraint that have perennially defined Zuccardi's bottlings from this vineyard. Telegraphing its profound, detailed nature despite being somewhat introverted, the wine lingers with an incredibly long, morphing finish of powdery tannins, taut minerality and a vibrant spine of acidity while avoiding overt austerity. A beautiful follow-up to the amazing 2021 vintage, this iteration foregrounds the bones of the site rather than the comparatively fleshy nature of its predecessor, and it will demand additional time in the cellar before what should be the better part of two decades of drinking pleasure.
Coming from five parcels of an 3,609-feet-elevation vineyard, the 2022 Malbec Finca Piedra Infinita offers “wow” levels of intensity and the highest level of precision, so much energy, acidity, and tension behind a wall of medium-bodied, salty fruit. The shallow alluvial soils of the Finca Piedra Infinita vineyard have a thick layer of calcareous material beneath the surface, and the wine shows this duality and will enjoy a great evolution over the next 20 years.
