The UnCorker

2006 Terrazas de los Andes Reserva Malbec

January 6, 2009 | In WINE REVIEWS | No Comments

Originally a Bordeaux grape, Malbec doesn’t get a lot of respect from the Borderlaise these days, in its last redoubt, the Bourg and the Blaye, vignerons have been uprooting Malbec and planting Merlot. Still a minor figure in the Loire Valley, where it is called Cot, it is quickly losing ground to Cabernet Franc. In the Southwest of France, it is still a presence, particularly from the rugged vineyards of Cahor- long known by the English as “the black wine” Cahors can be a mighty and long-lived wine- It is in Argentina where Malbec is king; it is in America that it has become ubiquitous- wine bars and shops, restaurants and dinner parties are replete with the stuff, for better or worse it is the Merlot of the new decade. Value priced at most quality levels, the quality variation is significant, and price isn’t a good determinant- Mendoza is the region, and most of these wines we are told come from altitudes between 400 and 1200 meters. Perhaps thats why to us at The UnCorker, so many Malbec’s taste a bit green and underripe. Malbec can be over-cropped and underripe, and still achieve fairly high sugar levels, making for a wine that, at least initially, has abundant fruit and alcohol. Add some  new oak to that and you have a big jammy wine that masks a bunch of scratchy under-ripeness, green pepper and harsh reedy tannins .  Thats where the 2006 Terrazas de los Andes Reserva Malbec comes in, grown at 1067 meters, with 13.5% alcohol, and 12 months in new oak, this wine sure does soak the fun out of wine drinking with its toasty oak, big dark fruit flavors and all of those under-ripe aspects. We at The UnCorker are sure that a time will come when the American market will stop buying anything that has Malbec written on the label(as in fact has been the case with Australian Shiraz) and make those Argentinians rethink their viticultural standards and practices.

* Editorial Note- we apologize if we have given the impression that no good Malbecs are made in Argentina, there are and we will surely write of them, however we spent good money on the above mentioned and were feeling both peeved and vexed.