malbec, Malbec, MALBEC!

posing in the Andes in front of Aconcagua

Ah, malbec! Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. This is what we thought a few years ago while vacationing in Argentina with a few friends. At that time the American dollar was very strong and the Argentine economy was in the dumps. We felt rich! As a result, of course, we gorged on food and wine. These days Argentina is famous for its malbec. They make a variety of whites, though that’s a bit ho-hum if you ask me. Why have white when you can drink red, I always say?!? And though they produce other reds, why mess with the best? It was pretty much malbec at lunch, dinner, sometimes in the afternoon, during wine tasting and once in a while in the evenings. We were there for about nine days—several in Buenos Aries and a few in Mendoza, a famous wine region near the Andes and the border to Chile. At any rate, you see the pattern emerging here. Malbec daily, which is a very good thing in theory, but in practice, it led me to grow really very over that fabulous wine. By the time we left for Brazil, I was convinced that the French, god bless them, had gotten the name right: malbec means something like ‘bad beak’ which I suppose one could loosely translate into ‘mouth.’ So there you are: I was sick of the bad mouth.

Argentina is a wonderful country if you haven’t had the good fortune to go there. The capital is just like they say in the guide books: very European seeming. It reminded me oddly of Montreal or perhaps Toronto, two Canadian cities that are also often described as very European. I wonder if that’s meant as a compliment or as an insult? Couldn’t these places be creative enough to develop cities unique to their own regions or what? You’ll never hear anyone saying that Los Angeles or Dallas reminds them of places in Europe! Isn’t it good to do your own thing sometimes?

Hegui enjoying the Buenos Aires nightlife with some handsome Argentines

Anyway, back to the trip. Buenos Aires went by in a blur. This could be because I was horribly ill with a dreadful cold that I caught on the plane. We did see a lot and we had a mutual friend who had friends in the city. They met us at a silver shop that one of them runs. Already that’s cool. Argentina got the name supposedly because the Spanish discovered silver there. But these very nice guys also arranged for us to go out to some trendy hot spots for dinner, drinks—malbec of course—and dancing. Wow!

In Mendoza, we went wine tasting one day with a private tour. The next day, that same tour company drove us up into the Andes to see the famous Aconcagua. It’s the tallest mountain anywhere in the world outside of Asia. Really awesome!

Anyway all of this rambling is to say that I’ve gotten back in the Argentine malbec groove with our recent tasting of a great malbec.

try some Argentine malbec very soon!

2006 Bodegas Colomé Estate Malbec Valle Calchaquí Salta, Argentina:

This wine supposedly was recommended by Wine Spectator as a “Smart Buy” and placed number 38 on their Top 100 wines of 2008 list. They rate it at 92 points. I spent $22.99 for the bottle. A bit over budget for my $20 limit but as a little Tuesday night splurge, it was worth it.

The wine had an opaque dark purple almost inky color that looked intense. Hegui thought that it smelled of “heat; hot like the desert.” I still have no idea what that means but I love the description. It tasted almost bloody like a good syrah. It had a lot of body and a moderate finish. Not pure malbec, it also had 7% cabernet sauvignon and 8% tannat.

It was a great wine! I’m almost ready for a malbec home tasting sometime soon.