HOW MALBEC REACHED ARGENTINA
MALBEC is one of most underrated red wine varietals in the world.
IT IS absolutely one of my favorite mono-varietal wines of all time, same as I adore mono-varietal Nebbiolo from Barolo and mono-varietal Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero and Rioja. I am just surprised Malbec is not as popular a red wine as it should be. Let me express my opinion on this varietal below.
The Bordeaux Connection Malbec
— known way back as either Auxerrois or Côt (which is still the varietal name used in the Loire region, in the Touraine AOC) — has been a regular fixture in the Bordeaux red blend, especially in the 19th century leading up the creation of the sacred Bordeaux Grand Cru Wine Classification of 1855. Unfortunately, the phylloxera epidemic from the 1850s to 1880s, and then the severe frost of 1956, practically wiped out this grape varietal in the region. Most, if not all the Grand Cru classified Medoc wines had malbec in their blend during the crucial classification stages, making malbec a true noble varietal.
Malbec was and is still one of five grape varietals allowed in a Bordeaux red blend, which include the omnipresent cabernet sauvignon and merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot. The previously allowed 6th varietal in Bordeaux, carmenere, found its way to Chile, in a similar way to how malbec found its way to Argentina also in 1850s, with both South American countries literally saving these two historical varietal grapes from possible extinction. Right now, roughly 75% of all malbec vineyards are in Argentina.
Gifted agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget probably wasn’t expecting that his defection to South America following Napoleon III proclaiming himself Emperor of France in 1852 would turn the inevitable irrelevance of malbec into a huge resurgence.
In 1853, Argentinean President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento commissioned Pouget to lead the Mendoza agricultural college, Quinta Normal de Agricultura, where he initiated the planting of French malbec in Argentine vineyards. Pouget was right about his theory that the malbec varietal would be suitable to grow in the warmer climate Argentina offers. Since then, Argentina never faltered on its way to becoming the most important wine country when it comes to producing Malbec wines.
The beauty of Argentine malbec is that this varietal grows and adapts to multiple terroir and growing conditions from north to south of the country, even if the large wine region of Mendoza produces over 80% of the varietal. Mendoza itself has three major subregions, namely: Maipu, Lujan de Cuyo, and the Uco Valley.
Then there are malbecs you can fßind in Argentina’s southernmost wine region of Patagonia, and my favorite Malbec region of Salta, in the northwest part of the country, where the highest vineyards can be found over 3,000 meters above sea-level.
Sherwin A. Lao is the first Filipino wine writer to be a member of both the Bordeaux-based Federation Internationale des Journalists et Ecrivains du Vin et des Spiritueux (FIJEV) and the UK-based Circle of Wine Writers (CWW). For comments, inquiries, wine event coverage, wine consultancy and other wine related concerns, e-mail the author at wineprotege@gmail.com, or check his wine training website https://thewinetrainingcamp.wordpress.com/ services