Posts Tagged ‘argentina’
Varietal: 100% Malbec
Region: Patagonia, Argentina
Cost: $13 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: A deep ruby-colored wine with rich, smooth blackberry flavors and vanilla aromas. Pairs well with red meats, cheeses, and pastas.
My Review: I’ve been a fan of Malbec for some time now, I’ve found it to be, on the whole, a nice inexpensive alternative to numerous other budget wines where you can get far better quality than your dollar would lead you to believe, especially coming out of South America, and it tends to pair well with the foods I like to eat. Because of that, I was pleased to receive a bottle of Malbec as a sample right at the end of the year, and my wife and I finally decided to pop the cork and give it a try last night.
Varietal: 100% Malbec
Region: Argentina – Mendoza
Cost: $11
Winemaker’s Notes: This unoaked, delicious, cozy, well-balanced Malbec is ruby in color and texture. Notes of cherry, candied apple and caramelized onion mingled with great tannins to make this a perfect wine for hearty stews, smoky mushrooms, spicy sauces, sausages, tomato based pastas and steaks.
My Review: You may (or may not) remember that a few months ago I reviewed the 2010 Alex Elman Torrontes and that I enjoyed it overall, but that it wasn’t what I was expecting based on my experiences with Torrontes. Had I kept that in mind I probably would have been less surprised by the 2009 Alex Elman Malbec.
Varietal: 100% Malbec
Region: Mendoza – Argentina
Cost: $12 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: Dark violet with brilliant purple colors. Good complexity in the nose with typical Malbec aromas of ripe fruit such as figs, plums, blackberries, and marmalades. Notes of vanilla, tobacco, coffee, and chocolate. Full-bodied red wine with sweet tannins, good structure, and long finish.
My Review: Given my fondness for the wines of South America, and for Malbec in general, the 2009 Santa Julia Reserva Malbec that I’d received as a sample seemed like a good choice to open for my third wedding anniversary last night when my wife and I were at home making dinner.
In case you forgot, back at the end of April I attended a lunch for Santa Julia wines and while everything was amazing, the 2009 Reserva Malbec was paired with a steak that had a lot of heat to it and made it hard to get a good feel for the wine. Fortunately the organizers were kind enough to send me another sample.
Varietal: 100% Torrontes
Region: Mendoza – Argentina
Cost: $13 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: This luscious, refreshing, lightly floral wine has notes of orange citrus, honeydew melon and maintains a well-balanced acidity. Its notes of honeyed fruit leaves a long taste in the mouth. This wine is great to sip all day and is a perfect match for salads, citrus accented foods, light fish, and semi soft cheeses.
My Review: Ok, before I delve into the actual review of this wine, I want to talk about Alex Elman for a minute. Part of why I was interested to get these wines when they were offered was because of her. While you can check out her entire life story over on her website, the short version itself is nothing short of amazing. Involved in the wine industry from an early age, Alex partially lost her vision in her late 20s due to complications from diabetes and after several eye surgeries within a year, had completely lost it by the age of 27.
Since then, her passion for wine has grown and in 2009 she decided to create her own label of wines focusing on sustainability at the vineyards where they are produced, with the inaugural release coming out in November of 2010. Talk about your amazing stories. Ok…now for the wine.
On Friday, I was fortunate to be invited to a lunch in Vienna to sample some Argentine food and wine. The Culinaria Cooking School was kind enough to host us as myself and others sampled a host of Santa Julia wines from the Zuccardi Family of wines, all paired with great Argentine food in what may have been one of the best lunches I’ve had. As with all good things, it started with bubbles.
We were each greeted with a glass of the Santa Julia Rose NV ($13 SRP), made from 100% Pinot Noir. The wine was a deep pink in color with aromas of strawberry that I would expect. In the mouth were subtle fruit flavors which went well with the light bubbles in the wine. All in all, a great way to start the lunch.
Our first course was a selection of Zuccardi Olive Oils with some fresh baked bread and Beef Empanadas, which had some hard-boiled egg in them, which I found to be absolutely brilliant. To pair with this we had a 2010 Santa Julia [+] Torrontes and a 2010 Santa Julia [+] Malbec ($10 SRP for both). The Torrontes had nice floral notes on the nose, and a slight sweet finish that was a nice counter note to the subtle spice of the empanadas. The Malbec was jammy and fruit forward, with dark fruit on the nose. Read the rest of this entry »
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvinon
Region: Argentina
Cost: $11 (SRP)
Maroon coloring with a hint of black throughout. blackberry, black pepper, and mulberry on the nose. Spice, cherry, pepper, and a tannic finish on the palate. Pairs well with red meats, big game, and hard cheeses.
Recommendations: When I got this bottle I instantly knew I needed to go and buy some steaks to pair it with. Any time the tasting notes on a wine say “red meats” in the recommended pairings section, I don’t argue with them. I opened the wine last night while the wife had abandoned me to go out with some friends. Fortunately, a friend of mine came over and he and I cook steaks, drank red wine, and watched action movies. It’s the 21st century, a Sunday evening for a couple of 30-something guys has changed. Read the rest of this entry »
