Michelini i Mufatto “Motorpsico”
WHY WE LOVE IT
- Sourced from the village of San Lorenzo, in the A Merced zone of Bierzo, one of Spain’s most exciting regions for Mencía.
- From organically grown, head-trained vines about 100 years old, farmed without irrigation on silt loam soils with slate and quartz, at 270 to 500 meters.
- An unusual field blend, with red and white grapes planted together in the same vineyard.
- Revives the traditional village style of Toral de los Vados, a local method for making a lighter, more approachable red.
- A wine that marks the family’s commitment to Bierzo and its people.
Varietal: Primarily Mencía, with other white grapes (Alicante Bouschet, Palomino, Godello and Doña Blanca)
Elaboration: The grapes are foot-trodden and fermented together with native yeasts, with must added without skins to make a lighter red. The wine then ages one year in used 225-liter French oak barrels.
Tasting Notes: Pale cherry in color. Aromas of wild strawberries and red berries, with floral and herbal touches. Light to medium-bodied, fresh and linear, with very fine, elegant tannins.
PRESS
2022 – 92 Wine Advocate
2023 – 93 James Suckling |92+ Wine Advocate | 91 Vinous
PRODUCER BACKGROUND
Michelini i Mufatto is a family winery in Gualtallary, high in Argentina’s Uco Valley, built around a single organically farmed vineyard — Agrícola La Cautiva — at 1,550 meters in thin granite and limestone soils. Wines ferment in concrete and age in used barrels and foudres, with each soil-defined parcel vinified separately. The whites draw on old vines, including a 120-year-old Semillon block and a Chenin Blanc vineyard planted in 1970.
Before this project, Gerardo Michelini helped establish Zorzal with his brothers, one of the wineries credited with putting Gualtallary’s high-altitude terroir on the map. He came to wine through architecture and banking, and now runs Michelini i Mufatto with his wife, Andrea Mufatto, and their son, Manu. The family also makes wine in Bierzo, Spain.