From Wine Spectator: Ripe and rich, but very pretty, with raspberry, plum cake, spice and floral notes followed by a fresh, silky finish.
From the Stock Report: You wouldn’t think after all the Argentine wine we had worked through during Q1 of ‘08, and the amount of high scoring South American juice we still have, we would be featuring a Malbec from Valle de Uco in a premium spot. Well, we just call ‘em as we see them, and there’s always room for another really impressive value red in a time when sub-$10 wines are becoming endangered thanks to the current plight of the dollar. This dark, chunky Malbec, which contains a 15% dollop of Tempranillo, has surprising depth, fruit, and palate authority for something of such a modest tariff. Of course, the story here does seem to indicate that this is not your run-of-the-mill bodega. All of the work is done by hand, the vines are cropped at a modest 1.2 kilogram per vine and the winery has been using what is now considered the enlightened gravity flow system for, literally, about a century. Fifty per cent of the wine sees six months in oak. There’s plenty of chunky plum and blackberry fruit here with typical Malbec spice and a slight ‘saltiness’ we associate with this part of Argentina where the vines reside at the 3300 foot level. Great purity, vivacious fruit tones and a generous texture belie this wine’s modest price range. We would make the point that this wine did get a score as well, an 88, from Wine Spectator. Not bad for sure. But we would also mention this has a bit of stuffing and structure. The tasting note was published July, 2007, 9 months ago, and tasted obviously before that, very early in its life. Clearly it’s in a good place now and can probably improve over the next couple of years. Great value.
