Brand story
Altos Las Hormigas Malbec 2022
Altos Las Hormigas was founded in Mendoza in 1995 by a group that brought Italian, Argentine and Chilean experience to one idea: that Malbec could be a wine of place rather than a wine of ripeness and oak. Antonio Morescalchi and Alberto Antonini started it, joined by winemaker Attilio Pagli and terroir specialist Dr. Pedro Parra, and the house motto — more fruit, less oak — has governed everything since. The team reads soils before it reads varieties, choosing well-drained loamy-sandy sites with deep root systems, and deliberately avoiding parcels with heavy surface gravel that heat the microclimate and rush ripening.
The Clásico draws 70% from Luján de Cuyo and 30% from Paraje Altamira in the Uco Valley, a semi-desert climate of hot days and cold nights. The 2022 harvest was short but intense, marked by heatwaves and heavy rain; picking just ahead of the heat preserved acidity and skin tension, and a cool final stretch let the berries finish in balance. Fermented in stainless steel at 24°C for ten days with 5% whole bunch and indigenous yeast only, extraction kept deliberately gentle, then aged nine months in concrete with no oak at all. The wine is vivid ruby, with plum, forest floor, gunpowder, black pepper, eucalyptus and pink pepper; fresh on entry, fine in acidity, medium-bodied and juicy. Malbec with nothing between the drinker and the ground it came from.
