2019 El Enemigo Chardonnay Mendoza Argentina

The hardest thing for a wine to do is blow past our already-high expectations.

Which, to put it mildly, is the 2019 El Enemigo Chardonnay in a nutshell.

Tasting with star winemaker Alejandro Vigil in Argentina last week, we knew the wines would be good—he’s got 100-point scores to his name and helms Catena as his day job—but we weren’t expecting the level of quality he packed into this under-$30 bottle.

We knew it had a 96-point score. We knew that a significant percentage of the wine comes from the Adrianna vineyard in Gualtallary, where Catena makes a pair of $125 Chardonnays. But still, when we tasted it, we were blown away.

Alejandro stands out among an increasingly competitive Argentine wine community for his relentless drive and fanatical attention to detail. There’s seemingly no labor he won’t undertake in pursuit of quality.

His Chardonnay is born from drama, yet it emerges with elegance and grace. Farmed in brutally harsh vineyards nearly a mile above sea level, the vines struggle with exceptionally rocky soils and bouts of wind that can top 60 miles per hour. There’s nothing easy here—and it creates impressive character in the wine.

Once the grapes are pressed, Alejandro ferments and ages most of the wine in 500L casks, only a small portion of which are new. He also allows some of the barrels to develop flor (a thin layer of wild yeast) to bring out additional complexity, yet the wine remains bright and energetic. That’s a highly technical, difficult process, and a rarity among Argentine Chardonnays, yet the results speak clearly—this was our favorite white wine of the lineup.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Sweetness
• Acidity

• ABV 13.80%
• 30 mins
• Now – 2027
• % Chardonnay
• Serving temperature – 48°
• Cork