Trivento launches innovative white Malbec

Leading Argentine wine brand Trivento is launching an “innovative” white Malbec that was born out of a collaborative hackathon-style social project to benefit its education programme.

The new White Malbec, which will be sold under its best-selling Trivento Reserve line, was to have been showcased at ProWein, was originally conceived as part of the company’s social responsibility project in 2018.

Trivento, which is part of Chilean wine group Concha Y Toro, has been working to promote education for children of its employees since 2012, and in 2015 teamed up with the FonBec Foundation to extend a scholarship programme across the communities in Mendoza. It is aiming to quadruple the number of scholarships it delivers annually to 50, to benefit children and students from poor backgrounds and conceived a challenge to come up with a wine whose profits could benefit the programme.

Around 420 winery collaborators were involved in a hackathon-style event in 2018 to generate ideas under the leadership of the winemaking team and project leader, winemaker Maximiliano Ortiz.

“The challenge of our winemaking team was to elaborate an attractive and fruity white wine made of a red variety, a blanc du noir,” a spokesman told the drinks business.

“During a working day each one of the 420 collaborators contribute to this project with ideas, knowledge and their valuable time. In few words, the company set the basis to create an innovated wine to contribute with resources to scholarships,” she continued.

The new style of the already well-known variety represented “inclusive teamwork with a social impact”.

“In the near future it will be an important wine in Trivento’s portfolio,” she added.

Lightly crushed

The grapes come from Luján de Cuyo and Uco Valley and were harvested early to maintain higher natural acidity, being hand-picked hand in order to keep the grains whole, before being softly crushed, destemmed and immediately pressed to prevent colour extraction.

The resulting pale white juice is fermented at 10°C for 15 days, which results in an innovative style of Malbec that the producers say have aromas of cherry, raspberry and green apple notes along with a marked acidity on the palate.

The inaugural 2019 vintage comprises approximately 350k bottles, which have been allocated to international markets including Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina and Mongolia, which is the first Asian market to received White Malbec.

A handful of smaller producers already produce a white Malbec on the UK market, but Trivento is likely to be the largest brand to do so, and it argues that the wine will become “an important part of the Trivento portfolio”.

Trivento Reserve Malbec is the UK’s best-selling Malbec.