Wine enthusiasts celebrate World Malbec Day

World Malbec Day, designed to celebrate malbec in its various forms across the world as well as to promote the wines, is being celebrated by wine enthusiasts today.

The date commemorates the commissioning in 1853 of French enologue Michel Aimé Pouget to introduce new vines to Argentina's dry western foothills - which proved ideal for winemaking. The official who commissioned Pouget, Domingo Sarmiento, later became president of Argentina.

While they had been cultivated around Bordeaux for 800 years, the malbec grapes Pouget introduced did not grow well in France, where it is known as cot and where it can take years for the tannins to soften and the flavors to express themselves - hence its name, meaning "bad nose."

Nor was its Argentine varietal initially successful.

Around 1993, however, malbec's appeal began to grow among locals as well as internationally. Production expanded from just 283,000 quintals in 1993 (just 1.5% of Argentina's total) to 3.6 million in 2015 - one-seventh of the nation's wine output. Some 2.8 million quintals were exported, making Argentina the primary source for the increasingly popular red.

With 76,000 acres under cultivation Argentina now grows over half the world's malbec, with the best wines made from grapes grown in Mendoza Province, where 85% of the country's malbec is bottled.

Mendoza's high altitudes give the varietal its renowned freshness and vivacity, coupled with juicy, brambly black fruits and hints of tar and chocolate that make these wines so appealing and approachable, particularly when drunk with relatively little ageing.

What is also praiseworthy about Argentine malbec is the high quality at a low price and the overall reliability: indifferent wines seem rare.

It is simply fortuitous that malbec partners wonderfully with rare steak and roast beef, since that is also an Argentine specialty, as well as other roasted and barbecued meats – although its freshness makes them fine with a variety of fare.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/world-malbec-day-argentina-wine-red-a8301046.html

Tourists enjoy malbec in the foothills of the Argentine Andes, where most of the popular varietal is grown.