Layer Cake Malbec

Winemaker Notes

We allow Layer Cake Malbec to ripen thoroughly on the vine. We tend to harvest four to six weeks after all other neighboring vineyards; a crucial element to the wine’s quality. Each cluster, once harvested by hand, is then destemmed and sorted – also by hand. Born at the base of the Andes and fed by the purest spring waters…I love this place.

Vineyard Notes

The fruit for Layer Cake Malbec comes from a vineyard that is flanking the Mendoza River in Argentina -a rocky terrain, strikingly similar to that of Chateauneuf du Pape in the Rhône Valley. The once 5-mile- wide Mendoza River is now mostly vineyard, abundant with some of Argentina’s most pristine Malbec vines. A plethora of smooth cobbles on the top bewilders the eye and imagination as to how the vines actually thrive in such a rugged terrain. Silt and gravel make up the subsoil under the larger cobbles. Our vineyard sits at an elevation of about 3,000 feet.

Climate: The climate is arid, with very low rainfall totals. Warm days are followed by cool evenings as the breezes from the Andes Mountain Range flow down to the Mendoza Valley floor.

Tasting Notes

The 2011 is a classic Malbec, but undoubtedly Layer Cake. Big, brooding, black fruit, then rich earth, truffles and dark cocoa are at the front. The Sea of Stones vineyard is at its core, always evident with the thread of minerality that the deep alluvial cobblestones lend. This wine is so elegant in the mouth with fresh-picked blackberries, simmering chocolate sauce on the stove, and somewhere someone’s cooking bacon … so many layers, so little time. Drinking a bottle of this wine will certainly lead to, well, opening another. So get it fast and get a lot while you can. We can never make enough to satisfy everyone.