It may sound more like a sports league, but the Under-40s (Sub40) is actually a wine tasting panel made up of Argentine winemakers all aged 40 or below. This is the third year that one of Argentina’s superstar sommeliers Maria Laura Ortiz has organised the event, in collaboration with caminosdelvino.com, to celebrate the expertise of the youngest generation of winemakers and start a conversation on the new styles and direction of Argentine wine.
It started with just 17 winemakers tasting wines in a garden in 2014. All the wines are made by young winemakers, and they were all judged by young winemakers on a 100 point scale. The wines come from all over Argentina, from Salta down to Patagonia.
By the second year the panel had incorporated a dream team of well-known winemakers over 40 to guide them through the tasting discussing some of the context for the wines. This year the under-40s will also be coached by a panel of over-40s, and they will be tasting more than 60 wines.
We’ll be visiting the tasting to give you the results, and talk to some of the up and coming winemakers in Argentina at the moment. To whet your palate, here is the line up of the players (ahem, winemakers):
Brennan Firth, Carola Tizio, Juan Pablo Michellini, Manuel Michelini, Lucas Niven, Germán Buk, Marcos Fernández, Lucas Amoretti, Matías Ciciani, Nicolás Navio, Rogelio Rabino, Santiago Mayorga, Germán Berra, Ezequiel, Ortego, Sebastián Zuccardi, Fernando Buscema, Giuseppe Franceschini, Juan F. Suárez, Santiago Garriga, Lucas Morán, Teresita Barrio, Germán Di Cesare , Emile Chaumont, Victoria Prandina, Maximiliano Ortiz, Rafael Miranda, Martín Morales, Ramiro Maures, Maricruz Antolín, Valeria Antolin, Damián Moreno, Sergio Pomar, Juan Ignacio Arnulphi, Mauricio Vegetti, Mauricio Vegetti, Thibault Lepourtre, Horacio Graffigna, Sebastián Bisole, Norberto Paez y Gonzalo Tamagnini