Week Seven - Out of Argentina

I’ve been eyeing this week’s bottles in the store since I started this blog and was excited to finally try them this week. I chose two Malbec wines, both produced in the Mendoza region of Argentina. After looking this area up on a map, I found that it’s in the far west of the country and centrally located from north to south. The area is very close to Chile and lies in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountains.

Malbec is a grape that was originally widely used in Bordeaux but has now becoming almost synonymous with Argentinean wine. In Argentina if a wine is labeled as Malbec, it is made 100% from that varietal so these were both good examples of the grape’s product.

We opened these bottles on Tuesday night and had prepared pasta with a spicy tomato sauce for dinner. Both wines held up to the strong flavors in the food, though the Norton tended to pair with it a little better. Later that evening Matt’s mom and two friends joined us and we tasted them both again and shared the wine – both bottles were a hit!

The first bottle I tasted was the 2006 El Ganador. The wine paired nicely with food and drank well on its own. There was nothing abrupt about this wine and our guests all enjoyed it as well. I tended to like this one a little better than the next simply because its fruit felt really balanced.

The Bottle: 2006 El Ganador Malbec

Price: $9.99
Would I Buy This Wine Again: Definitely and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to get acquainted with Malbecs. This would be a great wine to buy for a party - a real crowd pleaser.

The second bottle was the 2007 Norton Malbec. Norton is recognized as one of the major players in Argentinean winemaking and this was a fine example. I really got a sense of the oak on the nose and found this wine to be a bit more tannic than the El Ganador. However, the more striking features of this wine seemed to complement our spicy pasta sauce well.

The Bottle: 2007 Norton Malbec

Price: $9.99
Would I Buy This Wine Again: I believe I would. It seemed a little more distinctive than the El Ganador so might not appeal quite as widely, but a very good wine for people who appreciate a bit more earthy sharpness in a wine.

Source
Robinson, J. (2006). The Oxford Companion to Wine. USA: Oxford University Press .