Catena/Cousino Macul - Argentina/Chile Wine Tasting at Cafe Maxx

Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - 06:30 PM

This Event has been read: 2192 times.

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"Red wine is a great accompaniment to meat." - Mario Lemieux

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And is there a better place to experience this phenomenon than south of the border in both Chile and Argentina. 

If you have been following me for even a short length of time you have heard me say- “you just can't get a better value when considering Bordeaux varietals than what is coming from Chile and Argentina today”. Tonight we will be featuring a range of wines from Bodegas Nicolas Catena, one of the most important wineries in Argentina and this year we have added a few wines from the one of the top names from Chile- Cousino-Macul. 

These tastings at the Cafe Maxx for $35 are the best value of any event that we do. You get to try 8 different wines at the same time, pre-poured so they have a chance to open up and so you can go back through the line-up to get a second and third look at everything. This is how you learn about wine and with master chef Oliver Saucy sending out a few small courses to accompany the wines, you get a taste of Cafe Maxx and an education in wine all at the same time. A great way to spend happy hour.

Chef Oliver Saucy will be sending out a few small courses to accompany the tasting wines. The fee for this tasting event is $35 + Gratuity + tax, for reservations call 954-782-0606.

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Nicolas Catena/ Casino Macul Argentina/Chile Wine Tasting at Cafe Maxx

Wednesday, August 2014

6:30 PM

 

Tasting Line-up:

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2013 Cousino Macul "Isidora" Sauvignon Gris Maipo Valley      

Price: $20.25    Sale $17.82    Case $207

Cousino-Macul was one of the first wineries from Chile to make a breakthrough into the American market primarily due to the hard work of importer Alfredo Bartholomaus. The quality of the wines has been consistently good but recent improvements in the vineyards and winery have taken quality up to another level.  This wine features bright, juicy, yellow and orange fruits.  An easy drinking style with a zesty finish.

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2013 Catena Chardonnay High Mountain Vines Mendoza    

Price: $18.75    Sale $16.50    Case $192

This is the classic line, which is the entry level and they all come from high altitude vines, these grapes come from Adriana and Domingo, only 8 months in oak a small amount is new. Ripe tree fruit on the nose, apples and peach with lemon zest and just a note of lightly toasted oak spice. Lemon and apple fruit on the tongue crisp and refreshing style with a wonderful balance of juicy fruit, lemon citrus and a nice touch of lightly toasted oak spice. Finish 35+ Very Good

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2011 Allegrini and Renacier Enamore Mendoza    

Price: $25.50    Sale $22.44    Case $261

100% Appassimento this is a partnership between Allegrini and Renacier, 45% Malbec, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest is Bonarda and Cabernet Franc. This wine has a big bouquet of dark cherry liqueur like fruit, with sweet tobacco spice, light smoke, violet floral notes, sweet balsamic and dark chocolate very big bouquet of aromas. A big and chewy wine on the tongue with some residual but has a nice balance and freshness to the finish, sweet fruit, dark coco spice and at 15% alcohol this wine wears it well the tannins are smooth and silky texture through the finish. Finish 50+ Excellent +

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2011 Cousino Macul "Antiguas Reservas" Cabernet Sauvignon Maipo Valley        

Price: $17.00    Sale $14.96    Case $174

Showcasing a dark ruby color, this wine offers intense fruit aromas of berry, delicate cocoa, fresh herbs and light toast followed on the palate by harmonious flavors of ripe black plums and blackberry fruit. Medium-bodied, this wine has a persistent and complex finish and a structure that allows it to be enjoyed now or left to age for up to a decade.

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2010 Cousino Macul Finis Terrae       

Price: $23.75    Sale $20.90    Case $243

With a deep ruby-red color, 2009 Finis Terrae showcases an intense nose of red fruit with subtle eucalyptus and mint notes. It also offers very elegant and discrete wood notes, with some clove. In the mouth it is very tasty and elegant, medium-bodied and succulent. Cherries stand out on the very long ending. Perfect for enjoying now, but can be cellared for close to a decade.

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2011 Catena Malbec High Mountain Vines Mendoza

Price: $22.50    Sale $19.80    Case $230.00

Family owned since 1902 and this is a blend of all five of the estate vineyards as they have Malbec planted in each of them. This wine has a classic Malbec bouquet of violet/floral notes blackberry fruit, notes of fresh black earth and licorice spice. Juicy blackberry fruit on the tongue with smooth round tannins, notes of dark coco, licorice and violet floral notes, nice complexity through the finish. Finish 35+ Very Good +

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2011 Catena Cabernet Sauvignon High Mountain Vineyards Mendoza

Price: $20.25     Sale $17.82    Case $207

A blend of three vineyards Domingo, Argentino and a third they only have Malbec in all five vineyards, dark currant berry fruit, coffee, espresso and fresh plowed earth, bitter coco spice. A very smooth Cabernet Sauvignon with smooth tannins, nice structure with some of that nuance from the nose showing up through the finish. Finish 40+ Very Good +

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2011 Catena Alta Malbec Mendoza

Price: $51.75    Sale $45.54    Case $528

Catena Alta is an assemblage of historic rows within the Catena family Estate vineyards. The blend of these historic rows, like the marriage of sounds that create a symphony, yields a highly aromatic and elegant wine that speaks for the earth and the vines that have been tended by the Catenas for four generations. The Catena Alta wines can usually be drunk starting at three years after harvest and into the following one to two decades.

 

The fee for this tasting event is $35 + Gratuity + tax, for reservations call 954-782-0606.

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A bit about Catena Winery:

When you arrive in Argentina you feel like you have arrived in the land of the giants- everything is big, very big. Every time you get into the car to go somewhere, everything is far away, hailstones are the size of softballs, go out to dinner and order a steak, this is where the creators of the Flinstones came up with their props. The wine business in Argentina is equally as large. It is the sixth largest wine producing nation on the face of the earth. They also do quite a bit of drinking, as the annual per capita consumption of wine is an impressive 90 liters per person. For a long time this enthusiastic consumers of wine had only a small portion of their annual production was exported. The uncertain economy and inflation of 5000 per cent a year kept Argentine wines at home. After a restructuring of the economy in the late 1980’s Argentine wine producers were finally able to set wine prices for export and invest in their future export markets. Since then we have seen a bevy of very good and very affordable wines from Argentina in the United States.

The Andes form the most significant influence on the Argentine vineyards. This barrier removes all moisture from the Pacific winds, thus creating bone-dry conditions and 320 days of sunshine every year, and also providing plentiful water for irrigation. You know every silver lining has a cloud attached to it and this perfect scenario is ruined by the fact that the high altitude thunderstorms that form over the Andes drop golf-ball size hail over the vineyards on a regular basis just before harvest. Mendoza is Argentina’s most important wine region, producing 90 percent of that countries exportable fine wine. It enjoys summer temperatures of up to 104 degrees, plenty of run-off from the mountains for irrigation, and grapes with ideal sugar levels to make fine wine.

One of the oldest and most established vineyards in Argentina is Catena. For over 100 years the Catena family has been making wine in the premier grape growing region of Mendoza, Argentina. Thier wines are exported to major markets around the world and have received universal acclaim from some of the most prominent wine critics. The Catena family roots, like those of the Mondavi and Gallo families, lie deep in the fertile Italian wine growing province of Marche, Italy. There, Nicola Catena was born. The son of vineyard workers, Nicola set out for the New World at the end of the last century, taking with him a love for the vines and a keen desire to grow grapes and make wine on land of his own.

Like other Italian immigrants to Argentina, Nicola settled in Mendoza, which at the time was just developing a reputation as a prime grape growing region. In 1902, he planted his first vineyard in the desert soil of Mendoza and began producing wine for the domestic market. His eldest son, Domingo, soon took responsibility for the family business. Thrifty, industrious and savvy marketeers, the Catenas steadily increased their vineyards and winemaking capacity to become one of Argentina's largest and most prosperous wine producing families.

In 1963, soon after graduating from the university with a degree in economics, Nicolás, named for his grandfather and eldest son of Domingo and Angelica Zapata, took over the family business. The young Nicolás further diversified and expanded the firm. By 1976, the Catenas were selling more than 20 million bottles of wine per month in the domestic market, making them not only Argentina's, but one of the world's largest producers of bottled wines. "By the 1970s, we had tremendous vineyard and winemaking resources at our command," notes Nicolás. Nicolás' younger brother Jorge, the newest family member to join the business, enrolled at the University of California at Davis. There he came in contact with other young, forward thinking winemakers and, under Nicolás' direction, began making plans to modernize the family's vineyard and winemaking technology.

As with most pioneers, Nicolás remembers one inspirational moment that launched his quest to bring perfection to the family's winemaking operations. Invited in 1982 to be a visiting professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of California at Berkeley, he embarked on frequent weekend outings with his wife, Elena, to the nearby Napa Valley wine growing region. There, he came to realize the full extent of California's leading winemakers' determination to produce wines that would rival the best of those from France. "One day we stopped to visit the Robert Mondavi Winery," recalls Nicolás. "I had not yet met Robert Mondavi, and we just took the normal tour. Until that moment, I had not really understood what the Californians were doing. But when I saw the Mondavi operation, their investment in research and could appreciate what they were achieving in terms of quality, I felt truly inspired. I thought, 'My God, why not try this in Mendoza.' I knew it would take time, but I also knew it could be done. I always think of that visit as the magic moment that changed my whole concept of quality winemaking."

By the late 1980s, the push to make world class wines at Bodegas Esmeralda, the winery dedicated to producing the highest quality wines among the wineries of the Catena Zapata family, had begun in earnest. As the results of new techniques and new plantings in the vineyards began to bear fruit, Nicolás and his management team turned to upgrading its winemaking technology. Today, Bodegas Esmeralda is equipped with state of the art machinery and hundreds of French and American oak barrels. But Nicolás' philosophy is, and always has been, that a great wine originates in the vineyard, and that the goal of the winemaker is to assure that every grape cluster is allowed to achieve its fullest potential. In 1991, he released his first vintage of both Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon into the US. market. The wines were unusual for both their quality and their retail price, which was well above that of other Latin American wines.

In 1998, Nicolás Catena's daughter Laura joined the family business as head of exports. A Harvard and Stanford graduate, Laura Catena is determined to put Argentine wines on the world map of top producers.

"Mendoza's terroir is extraordinary, " says Laura, "optimal soils, low humidity, scarce rains, and the ability to find different microclimates ideal for each varietal as one goes up and down the Andean foothills, make Mendoza a fabulous and one of a kind place for quality viticulture."

 

A bit about Cousino Macul:

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Founded in 1856, Cousiño Macul is the only winery in Chile amongst those established in the 19th century that continues in the hands of the original founding family. The company remains 100% under family control, producing limited quantities of fine wines.

All the Cousiño Macul reserve wines are estate grown, estate vented and estate bottled. The complete supervision from the vineyard to the glass is a characteristic that Cousiño Macul shares with the world’s most renowed wineries.

The mission of Cousiño Macul is to produce world-class wines that are unmistakably Chilean, carrying the distinctive character of the Maipo Valley.

The name of the winery is derived from the family name of its founder (Matías Cousiño), plus the name given to the area where the estate was built, within the Maipo Valley: the company name implies “the Cousiño estate at Macul”. “Macul” is a word from the language spoken by the indigenous people before the discovery of America; the language is Quechua, and Macul in Quechua means “right hand”.

Look carefully and you will see that the logo of the winery is made up of each letters in the family name.