ABOUT 2018 HARVEST: [Warm & dry]- another classic Mendoza´s vintage.
Higher yields than 2017, headed to a more consistent quality, this is a fundamental fact to differentiate two warm vintages. For grape varieties like Malbec, too low yields in a warm cycle is never a good combination.
¡Remember that 2017 was the second shortest vintage in the last 60 years!
The winter of 2017 was very temperate and dry, the cold wasn´t too drastic, with few storms and some snowfall, especially in the highest areas of the Uco Valley.
Spring followed the same pattern, with very mild temperatures and a quiet, dry climate, until October 13th. when frosts arrived, especially in the lower areas of each region.
In the Uco Valley, the lowest temperatures occurred in the south, where the minimum reached -4 degrees Celsius (El Cepillo), but there were also frosts with milder sub-zero temperatures in La Consulta, Altamira, Vista Flores, Los Chacayes, San Pablo and the lowest areas of Tupungato like El Zampal.
In Gualtallary, there were also low temperatures, but the effect of the cold wasn´t fully appreciated until weeks later.
The budding until then looked uniform, promising a year of better production that would allow us to recover from the meager harvests of 2016 and 2017.
Then, more cold days came especially in the early hours of October 21 and November 18. In low sectors of Gualtallary we observed some plants with all their buds frozen after the night of November 18th.
We also had hot days (some with temperatures between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius) between the end of October and the beginning of November, alternated with cold days.
This alternation caused different reactions in the vines, which manifested uneven growth; secondary shoots emission (and tendrils) with the principal shoot still small, and shifts of the phenological stages. In some vineyards, the plants grew unevenly, with some to normal size and others keeping small, with the development of below-normal shoots.
In the Uco Valley in general, flowering and settling happened on a normal date. In the upper part of Gualtallary, above 1400 meters of altitude, both the Malbec and the Cabernet Franc flourished between November 22 and 28, finishing their flowering at the beginning of December.
January was warm and dry, while February was hot with rainfall below average heading some vineyards in different areas of the UcoValley to show premature stress symptoms.
March begun with low temperatures, adjusting to historical averages and allowing the plants to relax from the February heat. Those well-trained vineyards kept very healthy with a just a few preventive treatments against diseases such as downy and powdery mildew (including some plants, which needed no treatment at all!). We finally got into the harvest!
That is, it started almost on a normal date in most areas, but as the ripening progressed, it did so in the main varieties at the same time with no discrimination by region. From the third week of March, the sugar ripeness began to increase rapidly, at the same time that the acidity began a precipitous fall.
The early morning of March 25 surprised several areas of the Uco Valley with a frost – mainly in the lower areas such as El Cepillo, La Consulta and Eugenio Bustos in San Carlos, slightly attenuated in Altamira and Vista Flores, and almost irrelevant in the rest of the zones, including in Lujan de Cuyo (low parts of Agrelo and Perdriel)
The end of the harvest, which should have naturally occurred no later than mid-April, ended up as it usually does at the end of April (with some wineries still harvesting the first days of May), with overripe grapes, no acidity and a very high alcohol potential.
Summarizing: the quality of the grapes was very good, as long as we take into account those grapes harvested within a normal timeframe.
There will be very good wines in most regions. The quality will depend this year, above all, on the accuracy of the moment of harvest by each producer or winery, but rest assure 2018 is a better vintage than its predecessor.
Edgardo DEL POPOLO May 2018
Vintage Chart
Last 23 vintages (1996-2018):
12 warm: 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2017, 2018.
11 cold: 1998, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.