Matías Riccitelli Ungrafted Old Vines Semillón 2024
£44.95
The wine
Ungrafted old-vine Semillón from the Uco Valley, the white counterpart to Riccitelli’s Ungrafted Old Vines Malbec. Argentina is one of the few places where pre-phylloxera vines still grow on their own roots, and old Semillón plantings of this kind are increasingly prized for the texture and the saline length they give.
Matías Riccitelli works across Mendoza and Patagonia, and the Ungrafted and Old Vines bottlings are where he goes looking for the country’s vinous history rather than its ripeness. This is bottled under DIAM and passes through a three-micron membrane filter before bottling. At 12 per cent it sits at the taut end of his range.
The producer
Matías Riccitelli
View all Matías Riccitelli winesMatías Riccitelli is one of the brightest talents of the new Argentine generation. Son of the renowned winemaker Jorge Riccitelli, he worked vintages at prestigious wineries across Argentina and around the world before founding his own winery in Lujan de Cuyo in 2009.His fifty hectares of vineyard span three carefully chosen sites within Lujan de Cuyo, supplemented by remarkable parcels further afield: old, ungrafted vines in Patagonia's Rio Negro and high mountain fruit from Gualtallary in the Uco Valley. The project is young, dynamic and restlessly curious, seeking to show the full breadth of what Argentine terroir can do.
The labels are as playful as the winemaking is serious. Hey Malbec, This is Not Another Lovely Malbec and The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree (a wink to his father) sit alongside the profound Republica del Malbec, Riccitelli & Father, and the extraordinary Old Vines From Patagonia series of Torrontés, Semillon, Merlot and the rare Bastardo. Featured in the Top 100 of the World's Best Vineyards Awards 2025, these are vivid, precise wines with genuine personality.
