Malbec, Single Vineyard El Tomillo, Bodegas Salentein 2021
Tim Atkin MW Tim Atkin 94 (2025); Descorchados 94; Decanter 93 (2025); James Suckling 92 (2025)
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Why this wine
El Tomillo is one vineyard in Paraje Altamira, the limestone-marked corner of the Uco Valley that gives Malbec its finest tannins. Salentein split the ferment three ways and aged it 16 months in used French oak, so the site speaks louder than the wood. It is the step up from regional Malbec that actually tastes like a step up.
At a glance
- Grape
- Malbec
- Region
- Mendoza, Argentina
- Alcohol
- 14.00%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Barbecue, Cheese
How it tastes
Rich black fruit with a clear note of thyme, the herb the vineyard takes its name from. Full-bodied but smooth, the tannins silky and the finish long. Malbec.
The producer
Bodegas Salentein sits in the Uco Valley south of Mendoza, where the Dutch entrepreneur Mijndert Pon bought the estate in 1996 and began planting high in what was then rocky desert; the cross-shaped winery ferments in each of its four wings and moves the wine by gravity to cellars below, and the vineyards run from 1,050 to 1,600 metres against the Andes. The estate took 12th place in the 2025 World's Best Vineyards awards. This wine comes from the El Tomillo vineyard in the heart of the Paraje Altamira GI at 1,050 metres, a cool site with wide day-to-night swings and soils that range from very stony to deep, with limestone strongest where the ground is shallowest. After bunch selection and destemming the must was cold-macerated at 10-12°C, then split: 45% micro-vinified in used 225-litre barrels, 45% in 500-litre bins with non-Saccharomyces yeasts, the rest in concrete, all fermented on indigenous yeasts at 28-29°C with pígeage and controlled oxygenation, and left on skins for 20 to 25 days before 16 months in second- and third-use French oak. The cool, damp 2021 season ripened slowly and evenly, and late bud development spared the vines the spring frosts.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16-18°C. Good with herb-crusted lamb, grilled beef, slow-cooked short rib or a mature hard cheese. Drinking well now and through to around 2031; an hour in a decanter opens the herbal side. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.