First taste: PerSe Inseparable 2018 and latest releases

Winemakers David Bonomi and Edgardo (Edy) Del Popolo have worked together for 25 years. With a shared CV that reads like a who’s who of Argentinian wine – including names such as Norton, Santa Rita, Doña Paula and Susana Balbo – the duo launched their own boutique project in 2012: PerSe.

Wanting to create a range of terroir-focused, Malbec-based fine wines from Uco Valley, they initially worked with grapes purchased from growers. But in 2013 they found their own land in Monasterio, a remote corner of Uco’s Gualtallary region. Described by DWWA judge and author of the Descorchados guide, Patricio Tapia as ‘Argentina’s first grand cru’ this area is marked out by its high altitude, cool climate and unique soils.

‘What’s important is the amount of calcium carbonate we have in the soils,’ says Del Popolo. ‘Our vineyards are based where the content of calcium carbonate is the highest.’

Monasterio, meaning ‘monastery’, takes its name from the Cristo Orante order, who settled here in the mid-1990s. Bonomi and Del Popolo work in partnership with the monks, who had already planted their own vineyard near the monastery.

Bonomi and Del Popolo’s new 1.5ha PerSe vineyard was subdivided into very small plots of Malbec and Cabernet Franc, each less than a half a hectare in size, and all planted at different densities. Initially producing just 5,000 bottles and focusing on four labels – Uni del Bonnesant, La Craie, Iubileus and Volare del Camino – this year the pair have also launched Inseparable. 

‘Our Monasterio vineyards are planted at almost 1,500m elevation,’ explains Del Popolo. ‘There in the monastery we have two vineyards: at the base of the monastery, we have what we call “classic Gaultallary”. The classic Gaultallary is all about calcareous sands and gravels; this is the kind of soil where Inseparable is planted. Whereas the parcels for Iubileus and La Craie are planted up the hill.’

Winemaking for all of the labels takes a minimal intervention approach to allow the unique terroirs and particular vintage to express themselves; the phrase ‘per se’ means ‘of itself’. Inseparable is 100% Malbec, hand-picked, fermented in concrete and aged for 14 months in neutral French oak to produce a lifted and refined style. The inaugural 2018 bottling comes from what Del Pópolo calls as ‘a classic Mendoza vintage – warm and dry’.

Del Popolo describes Inseparable as ‘our entry wine in the range’, though at around £36 per bottle and with 10,800 bottles produced, he’s not talking mass-market. All the same, in comparison with the very limited quantities of the other latest releases – 1,020 bottles of the 2015 Iubileus or 800 bottles of 2017 La Craie – Inseparable 2018 represents an accessible taste of Argentina’s first ‘grand cru’.

PerSe: The wines