Argentinean Malbec
I am new to the wine world and just learning to taste the diminutive details wine has to offer. From the nose to the finish, I can only detect about 2% of it all. I think the key to truly learning to taste wine is to dissect everything you eat, drink, and smell. I have always stuffed food down my throat, but wine is teaching me to slow it down and enjoy the flavors.
While reading wine blogs and watching video wine blogs, I keep running into people talking about Argentinean Malbec. So on the way home today, I decided to stop by the wine store and pick me up a bottle of Malbec with out reading anything about it before I hit the store.
I ended up with a bottle of QUARA Malbec. The label is playful and has a great quote on the back. “QUARA, For people who take living seriously, but don’t live too seriously.” That is a great motto to have.
With my limited experience, I can say this wine is tremendous. There is a ton of dark fruit flavor with spicy undertones. This wine would go great with steak or a buffalo chicken sandwich. Anything that is somewhat spicy. I am sipping a glass as I type this and it is making my mouth water for more.
As you all know, I am fermenting my first batch of wine, which is a Cabernet Sauvignon. I was going to ferment a batch of Pinot Noir for my next batch, but I am starting to think that Malbec may overthrow that decision. I will have to try another bottle of a different brand to tell.
Tastings.com gave this wine 90 points. I must agree. It is exceptional.
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January 28th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Hi Jeff,
I went to Napa Valley last summer and talked to representatives at a few wineries. I was told most wines actually have more than one variety of grape represented, and that Malbec was a very popular grape to mix with other grapes. When a bottle of wine is more than 75% of a particular grape, they just call the wine by that grape. So if a bottle of wine is 80% Merlot, 10% Cabernet, and 10% Malbec, then they would just call this Merlot. Most wines are actually a mix of grapes like the example above. I’ve confirmed this statistic (>75%) on Wikipedia below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine
If you don’t decide to create wine with just the Malbec grape, you may want to consider using Malbec like a lot of winemakers do, which is as a grape to compliment another variety. This next harvest season I’m thinking about picking up some Cabernet and Malbec grapes. I’ll probably make a 80/20 combo and see how it turns out!