Canopus "Malbec de Sed" Mendoza, Argentina 2024

FROM JOSÉ PASTOR:

THE WINE: 100% Malbec from 2 vineyards planted in 2010, with some of the fruit provided by a local/friend grower Javier Martini. After a harvest by hand, the grapes were de-stemmed and left whole berry to ferment in concrete tanks with a short maceration of 7 days. The wine was then raised in concrete and bottled without fining, filtration, and 49 ppm’s of total SO2.

THE PRODUCER: Gabriel Dvoskin worked as a journalist for 15 years, living and traveling throughout Asia and Europe. A musician and a writer, he lived in Paris and worked as a war correspondent in the 1990s. At the same time, Gabriel discovered a passion for wine and viticulture, particularly the wines of Burgundy, the Northern Rhône, Barolo, and the Mosel. This led to time as a harvest assistant and vineyard hand at esteemed wineries in the Rhône and in Burgundy. Eventually he decided to change careers and to devote himself to wine and winemaking full-time.

Gabriel has worked organically in the vineyard since it was planted, and Canopus is certified organic and Biodynamic. In the cellar, Gabriel employs only neutral vessels: primarily concrete, but also used barrels, and amphorae from tinajero Juan Padilla in Spain. He almost always includes some portion of the stems during fermentation, making some wines 100% whole cluster, but more commonly employing tea-like infusions of whole-cluster bunches in destemmed juice. But the goal is always to reflect the place and to translate the character of his carefully farmed fruit without excessive embellishment in the cellar – to make wines of terroir, rather than wines of technique.