The wines of El Enemigo are meant to give a flavour of Argentina’s wine history while at the same time pushing new boundaries. Although wine has been in Argentina for centuries, it is only comparatively recently that their wines have reached the same quality levels as the Old World.
The winemakers at El Enemigo wanted to make light of the fact Argentina has embraced both aspects of modern winemaking, fresh and fruity New World style wines as well as classic “Old World” style wines. At their vineyards, they use up to date modern techniques in order to select bunches of grapes at their optimum ripeness whilst the wines they produce are firmly within the classic style of Argentinean wines.
Adrianna Catena and Alejandro Vigil created El Enemigo when they decided to join together their collective experience to produce wines that would be among the top of their country. It’s hard to see how they could have had a better start. Adrianna is from arguably the most famous winemaking dynasty of Argentina, while Alejandro Vigil was head of the soil division of Argentina’s Wine Institute and winemaker at Bodega Catena Zapata. Between the two of them, they have an unsurpassed knowledge of the Mendoza area and were able to select sites that would yield grapes in exactly the style they wanted.
El Enemigo source their grapes from vineyards in the Uco Valley which is generally considered one of the finest areas of Mendoza for producing wines. Everything from the soil to the weather is virtually ideal for growing grapes, the amount of sun and general lack of rain means a long growing season. The ideal conditions in the Uco Valley mean the winemakers at El Enemigo are able to work with grapes that had fallen out of favour in their native land at levels of ripeness and quality that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.
