Great malbec wine full#
Great malbec wine plus#

Of recent note are some excellent examples from Washington State. While Argentina still dominates, plantings are growing all over the world with lots of good inexpensive wines being made in California and Chile and even more unexpected places like New Zealand.Ĭlick here to get a printable shopping list of the best Malbec!

We cover them all in our list of the best Malbec. Ranging in style from relatively simple, cheap wines meant to be drunk young to those with significant staying power (and time in oak), there's plenty to explore in this extremely popular variety. It maintained a relatively nondescript existence there until the 1990's when it exploded in popularity with Argentina now accounting for 75% of the entire world's acreage of this variety. Before that happened however, Malbec was introduced into Argentina by a French agriculturist in 1868.

Originally one of the primary Bordeaux varietals (and still a mainstay in the Cahors region of France), the grape lost favor in France in the 1950's and 60's due to its sensitive nature to things like frost and mildew. This process extracted maximum colour and flavour yet kept the oak in check to make sure it complemented the wine and didn’t overpower it.The Malbec grape offers a fascinating look into the rise and fall and rise again of a grape variety!

Great malbec wine full#

The grapes were hand picked of course, left on the lees for a full month with regular battonage, and underwent full malolactic fermentation before being tansferred to second fill French oak for 11 months. Fruit, power, oak, acidity all in balance. This is big and powerful in the typical Argentine style we have all come to love.

Great malbec wine plus#

Plus the Benmarco project has been in the hands of Edy del Popolo, making premium fruit driven wines. One of my favourite Susana Balbo wines, along with Expessivo and Nosotros of course! The secret to this excellent Malbec is the fruit is all from Vista Flores in the Uco Valley, regarded as the best vineyard site in all Argentina. This is something special and they brought out a new label for the 2019 to stop the confusion! This the Susana Balbo Benmarco Malbec 2019 from the Uco Valley – please don’t confuse it with the cheaper lower quality offering on sale with other retailers, they are completely different wines. Tim Atkin 92 points James Suckling 93 points Wine Advocate 92 points Tim Atkin just scored it 95 points in his 2017 report. El Porvenir is regarded as the highest quality winery in the world, and they make one of the best Malbecs in all Argentina in my opinion. In the far north you have the moon like landscape of Salta where the minerals lend the wines certain qualities and the strong sunshine gives the grapes amazing sugar levels – the wines from El Porvenir de Los Andes are just superb. In the south you have Patagonia – still at high altitude by most regions’s standards but there are lower lying vineyards here in lush fertile valleys, where the clean air and icewater melt help produce wines of great individuality such as those from Aniello. Many great producers are based in Mendoza such as Susana Balbo’s Dominio del Plata, Benegas Lynch, Mauricio Lorca and Tapiz, with tiny artisan producers in the Uco Valley such as Atamisque making tiny production handcrafted wines. Mendoza is by far the largest production area, producing some excellent wines with truly outstanding ones coming from the specific higher altitude valleys such as Vista Flores or Tupungato in the Uco Valley. Argenitna is blessed with a fantastic and consistent climate, so these new wineries were able to identify specific sites to get the very best from their new plantings. Like many new world wine regions, Argentina has undergone a renaissance in winemaking with many boutique wineries emerging over the last decade or so. Argentina is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world and top Argentinian red wine is right up there with the best from the old world.