El Enemigo, Mendoza, Argentina

El Enemigo was born from a single conversation on a winter's evening in London in 2009, when two Argentinian friends decided to build something entirely their own. Alejandro Vigil, Chief Winemaker at Bodega Catena Zapata since 2002 and one of the most decorated winemakers in the Southern Hemisphere, and Adrianna Catena, youngest daughter of the legendary Nicolás Catena Zapata and a historian with a doctorate from Oxford, shared a mutual obsession: high-altitude Cabernet Franc in the style of old Pomerol. At a time when Mendoza was defined by heavy, extracted Malbec, this was a deliberate act of creative rebellion. The name El Enemigo, meaning "The Enemy," speaks to the internal battle that defines us: "At the end of the journey, we remember only one battle: the one we fought against ourselves."

The estate draws on four single-vineyard sites across Mendoza, ranging from 900m to 1,470m above sea level, with the crown jewel being a plot within the Catena family's Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary, Tupungato, arguably Argentina's most celebrated terroir. Here, calcareous rocky soils, extreme altitude, and dramatic day-to-night temperature swings produce grapes of extraordinary precision, acidity, and concentration. Each site brings a distinct personality: the mineral power of Gualtallary, the structured complexity of Los Chacayes, the intensity of El Cepillo, and the warmer, riper character of Agrelo in Luján de Cuyo.

Vigil's winemaking philosophy is built on restraint and transparency. Wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts, often incorporating whole clusters, and aged exclusively in 100-year-old Alsatian oak foudres, a deliberate nod to the original European immigrant winemakers of Mendoza who used the same material over a century ago. There is no fining, no filtering, and minimal sulphur. The result is wines that feel simultaneously ancient in their rootedness and completely alive in their freshness.

The critical reception has been historic. The Gran Enemigo Gualtallary 2013 received the first-ever 100-point score awarded to a South American wine by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, and remains the highest score ever given to a pure Cabernet Franc anywhere in the world. Further perfect scores have followed across the single-vineyard range, and the estate has been ranked in the Top 20 of The World's 50 Best Vineyards. Across two tiers, the entry-level El Enemigo range and the prestige Gran Enemigo single-vineyard bottlings, the wines offer one of the most compelling arguments for Argentine fine wine available today.