2023 Bodega Chacra Pinot Noir Barda Patagonia

Piero Incisa della Rocchetta's grandfather created Sassicaia, the only wine in Italy with an appellation named after itself. In 2004 Piero went to Patagonia, found an abandoned Pinot Noir vineyard planted in 1932, and bought it. He later added a neighboring parcel planted in 1955. Those are among the oldest ungrafted Pinot Noir vines anywhere on earth.

They are ungrafted because nothing here can kill them. Río Negro is desert. Humidity tops out at thirty percent and the region gets seven inches of rain a year. Phylloxera has never reached it and vine disease does not survive. The Neuquén and Limay rivers come down off the Andes, meet, and become the Río Negro, which is the only reason anything grows at all.

Barda comes from vines planted around 1990, ungrafted like the rest and propagated by massale selection off the old parcels. Yields run about two kilos per plant. Everything is certified organic and biodynamic. Jean-Marc Roulot of Meursault now works with them on their Chardonnay, which tells you how seriously Burgundy takes this place.

Fermentation happens cold in round cement tanks on wild yeast. The wine spends eleven months split evenly between concrete and French oak, only 15 percent of it new, then goes into bottle unfiltered.