The Vinos Plata Estate:
- Erick Plata of Vinos Plata is the kind of discovery you make on your 20th trip to Valle de Guadalupe that makes you realize just how little you know about it. How could someone so well-connected and making such incredible wines manage to fly under your radar? Anyway, we found him and now we are with him for good. His wines are an epiphany that you have to try to believe. 2020 marks the first time Plata's wines have left Mexico, and once the word spreads about what's in these bottles, they are going to be as hard to locate as if they had never arrived. Legend in the making.
Erick gets his grapes from several different vineyard sites:
- Valle de Guadalupe - Sandy soil at an elevation of 900 ft - average vine age 15 years - (Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, and Merlot) - 5 hectares.
-Ojos Negros - Clay soil at an elevation of 1,400 ft - average vine age 15 years - (Tempranillo, Merlot, and Syrah) - 1 hectare
- Valle de San Vicente - 3 vineyard sites:
- Chardonnay and Grenache - Sandy soil at an elevation of 1,200 ft - average vine age 35 years - dry farmed- 5 hectares.
- Tempranillo and Syrah - Clay soil at an elevation of 800 ft - average vine age 30 years - 10 hectares.
- Grenache - Clay soils at an elevation of 800 ft - average vine age 5 years - 2 hectares.
- Erick learned how to make wine in apprenticeship to a couple of the legends and pioneers of the winemaking industry in Mexico - Hugo D'Acosta and Cruz Macias. At 10 years of training and running, Erick is one of the most sensitive and inquisitive winemakers to be found in the region. An encyclopedia of knowledge already, he's the kind of personality whose mind is constantly oriented towards what he has yet to learn; a category Erick himself would tell you expands the closer you get to it.
- If there is a wine that fits the "garagiste" definition in the Valle, it's Vinos Plata. His operation carries with it all of the connotations of finding an absolute diamond in the rough. Despite the size and complete lack of pretense of his operation, Erick is making wines in Mexico that are some of the most deserving of world-wide recognition of any to be found.
Total production: 3 wines, 1,200 cases
2021 Plata Pura - Vinos Plata
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
This wine always represents Merlot at its finest, but it in the high notes and depth of fruit that this vintage excels, especially in its youth. It will be interesting to see how this vintages ages but given the way it’s expressing right at release I doubt many bottles will be around for long enough to find out.
Only 300 cases were made
Drinking window: Upon release - 7 to 12 years
Vintage:
2021
Blend:
100% Merlot
Producer:
Vinos Plata
Winemaker:
Erick Plata - Mexican
Vineyards:
This wine is unique in that Erick wanted to ue Merlot from 4 sites in each of the principle valleys to make the wine.
- San Vicente 1 - young vines (5 years) 700 ft elevation clay soil
- Ojos Negros - young vines (5 years) 1,800 ft elevation clay mixed with quartz
- Guadalupe - 15 year old vines, 900 ft elevation in sandy soil
- San Vicente 2 - 35 year old vines 700 ft elevation clay soil
Winemaking:
Pressed juice was fermented in felxitanks for a period of 8 days and then racked into various types of barrels ranging from 1st use through netural, 50% American and 50% French oak. The wine aged here for 12 months.
Sulfites: 40 ppm
Farming:
Sustainable
Alcohol:
13.3%
