But I have to buy malbec for our neighborhood tasting in September, so I bought ten malbecs available locally to sample and invited six friends over to help. For shopping, I had with me a list gleaned here that included Trapiche, Catena Alta, Archaval Ferrer, Luca, Vina Cobos and Miguel Escorihela Gascon. I was willing to spend up for my own education even if I couldn't afford those for the big tasting, but in fact I didn't end up stumbling over any of those names or any Argentine malbec over $25 so our range was basically cheap-shit-to-middlin'. (Bob Parsons is probably the only person who should read past this point.
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Also included in this tasting was a Washington malbec that came highly reccomended by a friend and major wine collector, but who loves big ripe "liquid candy" (his words) kind of wines. The wines were served in pairs and tasted over two days.
A1) 2005 Secreto, $7, 14.5% abv
Surprising magenta color. Juicy, flowers, pepper, simple/friendly/appealing. Six first place votes (including mine). Day two: big berry nose, sweet red fruit, extract, put on weight overnight, average plus.
A2) 2005 Montes Reserva, Chile, $10, $14% abv
Boysenberry, leather, vodka, extracted, seems artificial, hot finish which the other did not have though this supposedly has lower alcohol. Tastes more like 15-plus. But it was brawnier than wine 1, so it got two votes. Day two: still below average.
B1) 2004 Zolo, $11, 13.8%
Neither bad nor good, balanced but boring. Two votes. Day two: wow, where'd all this brett come from? DNPIM.
B2) 2003 Martino, $15, 13.5%
Sweet red licorice, raspberry tones, interesting, grippy, and leathery secondary nuances. Finally, real wine. Six votes. Day two: bright fruit, juicy but no jam, friendly, almost zinny with a nice bramble streak (if zin had this much acid), and the wine positively danced with the chimmichurri sauce. Very good.
C1) 2005 Dona Paula "Los Cardos", $8
Spicy, peppery, bright. Could get more interesting. Three votes. Day two: it got more interesting. Savory, whiff of smoke and roasted meat. Nice.
C2) 2005 Ricardo Santos, Las Madras vineyard, $16, 13.9%
Smokey, bold berry, woodsy, quite savory, structured, probably not showing all. Five votes. Day two: more of everything on day one plus tar, black pepper and pipe tobacco. Very manly, and our favorite on day two.
D1) 2005 Gougenheim, $10
Juicy, pomegranate, basil, complex, pinot-spice, no obvious oak or tannins, svelte and stylish. Great value, and though it received no votes because the next wine was so good, it might have garnered all the votes in any other flight. Day two: caramel! Somewhat less delineated and less interesting, but who cares, for $10 buy and drink every drop on Day One.
D2) 2005 Ben Marco, $20
Deep and lush, well-oaked but not objectionable, espresso, savory, masculine. 8 votes. None left over for Day Two.
E1) 2004 Mendel, $25, 14%
Monotone jammy raspberry flavors. A waste. No votes. Day two: still wasted. Jammy nose, slightly pre-ox, simple.
E2) 2005 Susanna Balbo Cabernet Sauvignon, $25, 13.9%
I boo-booed and picked up a CS instead of a malbec, which this retailer also had, but the mistake went undetected until we were searching the bottle for the alcohol numbers. Very sweet and merlotish, with lavender, lemon tart, and raspberry jam notes, grippy. None of us cared for it. Day Two: still sweet, still tannic, still merlotish. Eh.
F1) 2005 Tildeo, Washington state, $20, 13.9%
Big nose of roses and toasty vanilla oak, pomegranate, black raspberry, extracted, creamy sweet, would guess syrah, only 146 cases produced. Any of the other ten wines would have gotten 8 votes over this one from this crowd. Day two: oh yuck--now we have volatile acidity, too. Blueberry, licorice, huge oak. This is exactly the kind of wine I hate this state for making--malbec shmalbec, the underlying grape could be just about anything.
Then for yucks I threw in the only Argentine wine in my own cellar, a 2000 Susanna Balbo Brioso, which is her Bordeaux blend. It was pickly like an overheated Frambois, with that Lodi/bugspray brand of jamminess that I just detest. I had liked this wine when it was young and bought a few bottles, but they didn't age well at all--each bottle was less good than the one before it. Is seven years really too much to ask?
