About Cheval des Andes winery

Cheval des Andes is the result of a collaboration between two iconic wineries in France and in Argentina: Château Cheval Blanc in Saint Emilion and Terrazas de los Andes in Mendoza.

In 1998, Pierre Lurton, general manager at Cheval Blanc, was asked to find the best site for the winery. He studied the different terroirs of Las Compuertas with Roberta de la Mota and decided to combine Cheval Blanc’s experience with Malbec’s most pure expression. Cheval des Andes has inherited Château Cheval Blanc’s attention to detail, skills and techniques as well as the passion and commitment that has passed from generation to generation.

Under the hand of local winemaker Gerald Gabillet and the technical team at Cheval Blanc, Cheval des Andes makes just one wine from the very best plots of their old-vine Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Each harvest at Cheval des Andes tells its own story and is a pure expression of the climate and the vineyard conditions.

Cheval owns two vineyards, one in Las Compuertas in Luján planted in 1929, and another in La Consulta in the Uco Valley planted in 1945. The result is an age-worthy and sophisticated red blend which evolves beautifully in the cellar, showing the fine wine potential of Malbec blends. The first official vintage was in 2001 and if you ever have the chance to do a vertical tasting, the wines aptly show Cheval’s increasingly more delicate approach in the winemaking and refined vineyard focus. A deserving icon of Mendoza.

 

About the Cheval des Andes vineyards

Cheval des Andes has 50 hectares of vineyards and produces its wines from its two high-altitude vineyards: Las Compuertas in Luján de Cuyo and La Consulta, in Uco Valley. Both are cooler sub-regions of Mendoza and have old vines planted on their own roots. A strong focal point today is in promoting biodiversity in the vineyards with different plantations of fruit and forest trees, planting cover crops within the vine rows, and creating a natural habitat for birds, insects and bats, as well as caring for their own farm animals.

Read all about Cheval des Andes agroecology approach in our article!

Las Compuertas vineyard

Cheval des Andes’ Las Compuertas vineyard lies on gentle slopes at an altitude of 1,070 m.a.s.l.. It has alluvial, deep silty-loam soils composed of sand (36%), limestone (48%), and clay (16%). Stones can be found at 1.5 – 2.5 meters depth, which are believed to add a sense of minerality to the wines. The vines are all ungrafted and were originally planted in 1929.

La Consulta vineyard

The La Consulta in the Uco Valley is located at an altitude of 1,100 m.a.s.l. and has a cool microclimate affected by its proximity to the Andes mountains. It is characterized by a greater diurnal temperature variation than Las Compuertas and has alluvial soils are composed of sand (60%), clay (10%), and limestone (30%). Vines are ungrafted and were originally planted in 1945.

 

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Click here to read about Cheval des Andes’ agroecology manifesto: planting a host of cover crops, fruit trees and forestry trees in amongst the vines.

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Cheval des Andes wine

This is an age-worthy and sophisticated red blend which evolves beautifully in the cellar, showing the fine wine potential of Malbec blends. The earlier vintages were more Cabernet Sauvignon dominant but gradually started focusing more on Malbec in the blend with a small percentage of Petit Verdot. Today the wine is once again returning to its focus on more structure and freshness from Cabernet Sauvignon. 

“Cheval des Andes is a marriage of both of our emblematic grapes – Bordeaux’s emblematic Cabernet Sauvignon and Mendoza’s emblematic Malbec, but with an Andean and Argentine identity,” explains winemaker Gerald Gabillet.

 

 

About the winemaker, Gerald Gabillet

Gerald Gabillet is an experienced French winemaker who has worked in Bordeaux for many years at prestigious estates before taking on the challenge to come to Mendoza and Cheval des Andes while working closely with the technical team of Cheval Blanc.

Gerald holds a Master’s Degree in Oenology and a Diploma in Winemaking from the Institute of Vine & Wine Science of Bordeaux. Before joining Cheval des Andes as Technical Director in 2018, Gérald was Deputy Technical Director of Château Angelus since 2013.

He works closely with the Château Cheval Blanc team throughout the entire winemaking process of the Grand Cru of the Andes.

 

 

 

Visiting Cheval 

Cheval des Andes is open by appointment only for exclusive visits and an opportunity to taste different vintages of the wine at the beautiful loft in the middle of the vineyards.