Malbec grape variety is usually associated with Argentine wines, since it is the most grown stock in the country. Argentina is the fifth world wine producer and one of the main wine exporting countries in the world. Malbec grape variety is a red wine grape, followed in popularity by the Bonarda and the Cabernet Sauvignon. It usually produces varietal wines, which means that one or more wine varieties are used. It is sometimes blended with the Cabernet Sauvignon. The Malbec is native to France and its vineyards are numerous in the Cahors region –located in the southwest of France. In Bordeaux, it lost popularity due to a frost that destroyed 75% of the vineyards in the 1950s. It was planted in Argentina halfway through the 20th century; the country is today the first Malbec producer in the world. It is a purple-coloured thin-skinned grape, which needs more sun than other varieties to ripen. As it seems, it does not resist frosts well, taking into account what happened in Bordeaux. Malbec wines are of a dark colour and have plenty of tannins as well as a particular plum flavour. In general, they are intense wines; hence, many wineries tend to blend it with other varieties in order to create assemblage wines. By means of Argento’s blog, The Real Argentina, discover the qualities that have turned the Malbec into the most popular variety in Argentina. It is particularly important in the region of Mendoza, the most important wine producing region in the country with over 80% of Malbec wines being produced there. Discover restaurants and bars where you can taste the intense flavour and aroma of its wines and find out which food is paired with this variety. Our simple pairing guide will give you the needed tips in order for you to choose the perfect menu to go with your Malbec wine. Actually, it is not difficult to pair with, since it combines both with complex dishes and with simple everyday recipes. For example, it is particularly well paired with the Argentine roast, with dishes dressed with carbonara sauce, with lentil stews or with slightly spicy cheeses. Moreover, you will find out that the different Malbec wines produced by Argento are found among the favourite ones of some of the best Argentine sommeliers. There are important differences between Argentine Malbec wines and French Malbec wines. The former are more velvety and darker whereas the latter are more structured. The recommended temperature to serve a varietal wine is 16 degrees. This grape variety is so popular in the country that every 17th of April the Malbec Wine Day is celebrated. The celebration commemorates the day that the Argentine president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento asked agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget, also known as Miguel Pouget, to bring new varieties to Argentina. Among them, the Malbec was found.
The marriage of Malbec and meat may be as famous as Maradona, but ask five leading Argentine sommeliers to champion any grape and its food pairing potential, and the results give lie to the versatility of Argentina’s diverse wine styles.
Few people beyond South American shores realise that Argentina is the fifth biggest wine producer in the world, making myriad varieties from vineyards that stretch from lofty Salta in the North West to the windswept river valleys of Patagonia in the south. From aromatic, spicy Torrontés to supple Pinot Noirs, by way of Viognier, Chardonnay, Cabernets Franc and Sauvingon, plus up-and-coming grapes such as Bonarda and Tempranillo, Argentina’s rich heritage of vines delivers a surprising wealth of styles.
The term “New World” is a pretty intriguing concept when it comes to Argentine winemaking given that its history stretches back some four and a half centuries. As with much of the Americas, it’s a story that involves Spanish conquistadors, Catholic missionaries, European migrants and, more latterly, the coming of the railway. To put this into perspective, the English Tudor monarch King Henry VIII had only just died when the first vitis vinifera cuttings (the wine grape vine) were planted in what was to become Argentine soil.
Restaurateur, sommelier and consultant Aldo Graziani of Aldo’s Vinoteca fame talks to Andrew Catchpole about a life immersed in Argentinian wine. Q: What sparked your love of wine? Aldo: “In Argentina the wine culture is very old, you grow up with wine in your house every day…”
This December, we are counting down our Twelve Wines of Christmas with a new wine every weekday from December 6th to 21st. Feel free to sing along! “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…”
The appetite-whetting sight and scent of an alfresco Argentine asado is enough to bring out the inner caveman in even the most sophisticated of metropolitan food lover. And nowhere is this more apparent than after a hard day’s wine tasting, out among the vines of Mendoza, as the first sizzle of meat hitting the grill sends a plume of smoky welcome into the crisp Andean air.
It was at a 3,457 metre-high pass, somewhere way to the west of Salta city, after four hours on switchback, rubble-strewn dirt ‘roads’, that the extraordinary immensity of the Andean Alto-Plano really sank in. Admittedly the cocoa leaves that my native driver kept feeding me (for medicinal purposes) probably added to the sense of dizzying awe…
Had the Americans put the democrat John Kerry in the White House instead of re-electing George Bush in 2004, things might have been very different. How different is impossible to say, but it certainly changed the life of Michael Evans, one of Kerry’s campaign managers. Desperate for a break after the election defeat, Evans bought a return ticket from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires. “I came literally for a vacation and just expected to be here a couple of weeks.” Eight years on, he’s still there.
As the second biggest wine region in Argentina, San Juan is the source of one in five bottles of Argentine wine and has around 50,000 hectares (120,000 acres) of vineyards. The first plantings were made by the Spanish soon after the city of San Juan de la Frontera was founded in 1562, and probably a few decades before vines spread further south. Its longest surviving winery…
Fresh from a recent trip to Mendoza, Andrew Catchpole looks at the innovative Argentine art of microclimatic blending. An amusing and revealing tweet recently did the rounds from a satirical would-be-sommelier tweeter. Hashtagged #LessonsInService, the twittersphere was advised: “When writing wine descriptions on a menu: You can write “crisp, crispy or Malbec” on anything and it will sell.”…