Bodega Noemía

The Free Bacchus Story

In 2003 Hans Vinding-Diers carried an unlabelled bottle to the London Wine Fair. It was the first vintage, the 2001, from the Patagonian winery he had founded with Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano and named after her. By his account, within fifteen minutes a British importer had asked to buy all of it. Steven Spurrier then gave it five stars in Decanter, and Wine Spectator scored it 94.

Most Argentine Malbec comes from Mendoza, high in the Andes, where altitude keeps the nights cool. Noemía is far to the south, in the Río Negro valley near the village of Mainqué, and the cool comes from latitude instead. The valley gets about seven inches of rain a year. The vines drink Andean river water, carried by gravity through canals laid out in the early 1900s and let onto the vineyard by flooding a handful of times a year. Ecocert certifies the estate organic, as a farm and as a winery.

The wine that made the name comes from 1.5 hectares planted in 1932. Most of the world's vineyards were replanted onto American rootstock after the phylloxera aphid, but these vines are still on their own roots, grown from cuttings of older vines rather than a clone, so every plant is genetically a little different. The plot gives about 2,000 bottles a year.

Vinding-Diers now owns the winery with his wife and children. He ages Noemía for two years in older barrels, so the oak stays in the background, and holds it a year in bottle before release. Tim Atkin MW scored the 2022 at 99 points.