Bodega Alfredo Roca    

My first experience with Alfredo Roca was in a fine wine restaurant in Mendoza. The restaurant had no wine list, just a small room with wines and price tags. You selected your bottle and carried it to your table.

As expected, almost all of the wines were from Mendoza’s top Valle de Uco and Central districts, near the city. Only a few came from the south, oddly including the only Pinot Noir among over 200 wines: 2002 Alfredo Roca Family Reserve. There had to be a reason!

The wine was not only fine, it was fascinating. Wine professionals are nuts about Pinot Noir, often referred to (with a straight face) as the ‘Holy Grail’ of grape varietals. New World examples beg comparison to authentic Burgundy; if they do not seem Burgundian, do they even taste like Pinot Noir at all? If so, are they more like Oregon or California; if California, Carneros, Russian River, Santa Barbara, Santa Rita Hills…?

Roca’s was blatantly Pinot Noir but defied my efforts to categorize it by place. I finally settled on the Santa Cruz Mountains, itself a Holy Grail for Pinot Noir (there is little acreage, and a marginal climate can make fine and great wine even rarer than fine and great Burgundy). It was an eye-opening bottle and turned a good dinner into an exciting event.

Vineyards

I arrived for my first visit predisposed to like the people, place and wines. This attitude got an immediate boost. Alfredo Roca is very much a Spanish Gentleman, about 60 years of age, simultaneously exuding warmth and self-assurance without a trace of arrogance. I strongly believe that fine wines are grown, not made, yet winery visits inevitably begin with “would you like a tour of our cellars”. Roca’s began with “Let’s go look at the vineyards.”

Alfredo Roca’s father held University degrees in both viticulture and enology. So does Alfredo. So does Alfredo’s son, Alejandro. The family knows that only personal hands-on control and oversight of the work, from planting to bottling, can assure the quality which is their single focus.

There are 282 acres of vines, far from small but far from large by Argentine standards. They buy neither grapes nor wine and bottle everything they grow. This is purely an Estate Winery.

While 1000 metres above sea level is the benchmark for quality in the Valle de Uco and central Mendoza, the southern vineyards around San Rafael are lower, typically 4-500 metres (1300-1600 feet). However a combination of cooler southern air and a wind tunnel from the Andes makes them as cool as most of the higher northern vineyards.

Roca’s vines are mostly at 800 metres (2600 feet), giving cold climate wines! The glorious 5 acre parcel of Pinot Noir, south-facing and on red iron soil, is at 3000 feet and might be the coolest parcel in all of Mendoza.

Winery

While fine wines are grown, not made, it is all too easy to ruin them in the cellar. It is no accident that every Roca to manage the property takes degrees in both viticulture and enology. The Bodega is impeccably clean. There is an abundance of both cooperage and chilling capacity, allowing for the precise and totally separate handling of every batch of grapes and wine. Several years ago a state-of-the-art chilling tunnel was installed, assuring that the hand-harvested grapes are at optimal temperature when they arrive at the crusher (reds) or press (whites).

Introduction Redux

My first visit was rushed. I had never heard of the Bodega before my epiphany in the Mendoza restaurant and already had a brutally full schedule. I wedged in the visit to Roca. I saw the vineyards and tasted just a few wines, buying bottles of the rest to taste and drink over the next few days. Amazement followed amazement as I realized that I had uncovered an obscure Bodega producing some of Argentina’s finest wines.

Alfredo Roca’s last words to me on that visit were: “We have three objectives here. Quality. Quality. Quality.” That’s easy to say but very hard to do. I take such pronouncements with many grains of salt. Alfredo Roca was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Wines

There are 14 of them. What matters is that the attention to detail is as great for the 15,000 cases of entry-level Roca Exclusivo Tinto (cropped at 5 tons/ acre from Bonarda and Sangiovese, bottled without oak ageing) as for the precious 650 cases of Pinot Noir Family Reserve (cropped at less than 2 tons/ acre, aged a year in small new French oak barrels). Eight wines are currently imported:

Alfredo Roca Tocai Friuliano
4000 cases – Is there something less than obvious about a grape named Tocai (from the Hungarian ‘Tokay’) Friuliano (Italy’s Friuli) grown in Argentina? Alfredo’s is drop-dead beautiful, flowery, aromatic, light to medium in body, intensely flavored, perfectly dry.

Alfredo Roca Chardonnay
4000 cases – A remarkably pure example, unoaked, unusually rich with lovely pear and apple fruit; the wine goes through malolactic fermentation but thankfully lacks butter flavors.

Alfredo Roca Malbec
10,000 cases – Fruit is the hallmark of all Roca wines. Only some of the Family Reserves see oak. This is a Malbec of remarkable density for the price, full of finesse, nicely mineral, with a hint of violets.

Alfredo Roca Cabernet Sauvignon
10,000 cases – While Malbec is Argentina’s reference varietal, I find the basic Roca Cabernet stunning. This has a purity of fruit that would be remarkable at any price, intensely flavored, with classic notes of currants and cedar, and abundant but extremely fine tannins.

Alfredo Roca Family Reserve Tocai Friuliano
300 cases – Selected from a small parcel, this is an exceptionally rich, lush exotic bottling of great concentration and power. The flowery character is overwhelmed by an abundance of fruit featuring peaches, melons and apples.

Alfredo Roca Family Reserve Chardonnay
500 cases – Here is a full-throttle Chardonnay in the New World style, blatantly and lavishly oaked (8 months in 100% new French oak) full of power yet still restrained and balanced.

Alfredo Roca Family Reserve Pinot Noir
650 cases – Roca has only one parcel of Pinot Noir and this is the only wine. Cropped at barely 2 tons per acre, it combines an almost Burgundian sense of terroir with a lively New World character, a perfectly balanced blend of freshness and opulence.

Alfredo Roca Family Reserve Malbec
1000 cases – The flagship wine from Argentina’s flagship varietal. This is a substantially oaked version, but the oak is submerged in lush, ripe fruit, a strong hint of violets and an intense mineral density. Released at 4 years, it can be cellared for a decade.