Malbec Tasting This Saturday!

Malbec Tasting
Saturday - January 10, 2009
11am-8pm

Malbec is proof that wine is local.

Terroir, we are often reminded, is wine's raison d'etre and we wine writers and enthusiasts eagerly sip at the cup of wine's particularity. We are excited by the idea that wine is of a place, and that no other place can speak the same dialect as can certain grapes in certain places. But then wine writers blather about Burgundian vineyards, without explaining what differentiates one vineyard from another, other than name and reputation. Some of us writers will go on about Riesling vines on steep Mittel Mosel slopes and though the vineyards are photogenic and frighteningly precipitous, we aren't told much more. And the earthiness of Barolo and Barbaresco is much heralded but unexplained. Is it that the winemakers are rustic peasants and slop a bit of pig crap into their wines, or is it that the differing components in the Helvetian and Tortonian soils under these vines actually makes a difference in the flavors of the wines?

Perhaps those questions are best left to another newsletter. Suffice it to say that the wines of the New World (the Americas, Australasia and South Africa) are often described as having little or no earthiness, while Old World wines (Europe and bits of northern Africa and the Middle East) tend to show lots of earthiness. So terroir (that notion of place as being preeminent) is not important in New World wines, right?

Not so fast, mister smarty-pants. For each person who dismisses New World wines as soulless expressions of money and simple varietal character, devoid of vineyard, region and, yes, terroir, I say to that person: think upon Malbec.

Malbec is one of Bordeaux's lesser grapes. Indeed, it is the least among lessers. In Bordeaux, it's employed to add color to a wine, and that's about it. Nobody promotes the grape there, though you can find arch defenders of grapes like Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and even a few Saint Macaire and Carmenere stalwarts.

Malbec's tribe is farther to the southeast, in places like Cahors, where the grape has been grown for centuries or longer. But, any Cahorienne reading this, turn the page, I beg you, because I'm gonna say it: Malbec in France sucks.

There: I've said it. Sure, there are some good producers; heck, I've got ten and twelve year old bottles of Clos du Coutale Cahors in my cellar and I love those wines. But one good apple doesn't right the apple cart, or some such saying that I should work on inventing. Most Malbec in France is tart, astringent, charmless and, what's that word, oh, yes, it sucks.

Now transplant the grape to California and it has color, lots of deep, rich color and, well, yeah, the flavors and aromas? Hmm, what should I say? It doesn't suck. Not like French Malbec sucks. That's not really the right word. It doesn't suck but - it's, oh, I know! It's boring! That's the word! It's really booooorrring.

So, here's the point. In Argentina, you plant Malbec up in the foothills of the Andes, in an area called Mendoza, where soils can be quite depleted, where moisture comes only from mountain runoff, and if rain arrives, it can be in the form of destructive hail and the growing season goes on and on and the elevated vineyards give the vines something between sunburn and a steroid dose of photosynthesis and here Malbec is - home.

At least, so it would seem, because Malbec shows its expression in the elevated vineyards of Mendoza: two thousand to three thousand feet up or more, with powdery, desiccated soils. Here in Mendoza, Malbec has something to say; quite a lot to say, in fact.

Fifteen years ago, Malbec was Malbec. If it was drinkable, it was from Argentina. Ten years ago, we discovered that Mendoza Malbec was very interesting and even occasionally delicious wine. In the last five years, we have seen that each vineyard within Mendoza has a slightly different set of flavors and aromas to add to the character of Malbec.

And even more tantalizingly, when we think we have figured out that Lujan de Cujo (for instance) is a vineyard that gives a certain melon rind note to the rich and seductive Malbec grown there, the climate moves on. Global warming, global weirding, call it what you will, but cool, mountainous valleys like the Uco Valley were off limits twenty years ago for Malbec. Today their cool and shorter growing season offers to Malbec mercurial character a place where it can be less lush and more balanced. The Uco Valley doesn't make Argentina's best Malbecs, but there's no one I have talked to in Argentina who doesn't want to have some sweet property in the Uco Valley, just in case it turns into the country's sweet Malbec spot.

Malbec is proof that where you plant a grape matters and that is the best way to explain terroir.

Cheers,

Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine