The Diversity of Malbec

Malbec from Argentina is nothing new; it’s their national grape after all. But I decided to get a group together to talk about, learn a bit more about why this grape works so well on the slopes of the Andes.
 

So with a table booked at Pearl, and bottles of Malbec in hand I invited Antonin Dubuis (Maze Restaurant), Agustin Trapero (Launceston Place), Valeria Guimaraes (Comedor and Grill), Paola Tich (journalist), Francisco Bragoni (Trivento Sommellier) to taste some of our finest wines.

  Before we went through for lunch Francisco brought with him three different bottles of Malbec from different regions of Mendoza, he ran a brief master class on Malbec and what makes this wine so special:

 

  

  The differences in the flavour profiles of these regions were quite outstanding, a quick summary of what we found is worthy of note:

 * Cruz del Alto: Lots of freshness, with clean acidity

 * Vistalba: Intense fruit flavours, very elegant with ripe tannins and a touch of spiciness, the colour was also more intense here than other bottles.-

 * Las Compuertas: Very juicy and ripe style of Malbec, aromatic nose

The same grape variety has totally different behaviours at different altitudes, which explains the differences that Trivento finds with their Malbecs. Malbec from warmer regions (below 900 meters) tends to accelerate its sugar ripeness yet with limited fruit expression or developing over ripe characters, with leathery and/or cooked aromas and flavours have a flat structure on the palate. Malbec from the Vistalba region (between 1000–1100m), has the perfect balance between sugar ripeness and the accumulation of the components that deliver character, expression and

concentration. The Malbec wines from Vistalba, display the typical aromas of Malbec like plums, raisins, raspberry, black pepper and violets with a full body, creamy texture yet with sweet and round tannins. We could define this as more elegant and complex Malbec.

Malbec from the Uco Valley (between 1000–1100m yet at the south limit of Mendoza, achieves an incredible concentration yet with aromas that are mainly flowery, specially violets, and fresh fruit like raspberry. In the palate the wines tend to have sweet fruit in the front palate, a lighter middle palate and tannins that are firmer and harder in the back palate.

We were taken to the restaurant by Federic Taho, Head Sommelier at Pearl, he explained to us the concept of the restaurant, we were also introduced to Jan Tanaka, the Head Chef and resident celebrity now after his many appearances on the television on Saturday Kitchen.

 

We had a delicious lunch, which started with a very complex dish; veal Niçoise salad, with wild garlic and served with crushed Jersey Royal potatoes. To go with this, I chose our Amado Sur Malbec, An unusual choice to serve with veal, as normally one would choose a white wine, but the intensity of the veal worked well with this balanced red. 
Valeria liked the combination of flavours and was pleased with the match, especially the veal & black olive tapenade. However, Antonin still would have preferred a white.

 

For the main course we had Lamb en Crepinette with a foie gras mousse, to compliment this dish we needed something a little richer, so I chose two wines, the Trivento Golden Reserve Malbec 2009 and Eolo 2006. The Golden Reserve is a complex wine made totally from Malbec grapes from Lujan de Cuyo and aged in French oak barrels. Eolo, our flagship wines, is Malbec blended with just 2% of Syrah, it is this two percent which adds a wonderful spice to the wine, intense and bursting with black fruit flavours.

 

Agustin really enjoyed the combination of flavours which the Golden Reserve brought to the dish, the intense violet aromas of the wine really enhanced the complexity of the lamb and highlighted the fattiness of the foie gras. But Eolo, well it stole the show! Perfectly complimenting the dish; Agustin did say that it was a ‘baby’ and has time to evolve further.

 

To finish our lunch we drank the Brisa de Otoño, a sweet dessert wine, made from Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier grapes, Federic recommended a refreshing dish after such a rich main course, and we all enjoyed a mandarin mousse with white chocolate ice-cream. The acidity from the mousse balanced perfectly the sweetness of the wine

 

 

The best wine: Eolo 2006
The best food match: The Golden Reserve Malbec and the lamb
Conversationalist: Brisa de Otoño.