I was in my local supermarket a few weeks ago taking
advantage of their 25% off when you bought 6 or more bottles when I came across
their new wine section, so, as you do, I took a look at what they had to offer.
I came across a bottle of Argentinean Reserve Malbec from the Vinalba winery, I reviewed a bottle of Torrontes from them a
while, which I actually found to be an excellent wine, although The Wine Sleuth did recommend that I
try one from the Salta region,
which I still have to do!
Vinalba have two main
vineyard sites, Mendoza
and Patagonia,
with the later being the site used to grow the grapes for this wine, actually,
to be more precise, the Rio
Negro valley. Patagonia is the southern most geographical region in South
America and covers an area across both Argentina and Chile, with the southern
end of the Andes Mountains running through it, and the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans on either side.
On pouring, it had a deep ruby colour that was almost
opaque; it had wonderfully pronounced aromas of dark fruit and chocolate. On
the palate you got amazingly ripe fruit flavours of blackcurrant and cherries,
followed by vanilla and finally a touch of smoke thrown into the mix for good
measure, these all came at you wave after wave, which just excited the senses.
This was a wonderfully complex wine, with great fruit and
spice characteristics that I would definitely recommend, it would go great with
a roast or lamb cooked pretty much however you’d want, especially for around
the £9 price mark.
