find this wine – from £8.79 in the UK and $14.98 in the US
There is a danger that we wine writers overlook the obvious. This, you might think, is a preamble to my telling you that today’s wine of the week is Mouton Cadet or Mateus Rosé. But actually, leading Argentine producer Catena is so established now that I almost feel guilty for pointing you in the direction of such an obvious wine. But it so good!
At least, it depends what you want from your Argentine red. If you want something super-sweet and thick that positively oozes alcohol then this wine is probably not what you’re looking for. What impresses me about this wine is that it is indisputably Argentine Malbec but the structure is absolutely classic claret – nothing too heavy (13.8% alcohol is virtually light nowadays…), with a beginning, middle and an end to it, lots of complexity but refreshment too. There is wonderful life in this wine and I feel that if you are a traditional Bordeaux drinker who has never been tempted by the idea of a South American red, or been put off by them, this is a wine you should try. And this the moment to try it.
Nicolas Catena is the guy who, until recently for obvious reasons, wanted to be the Robert Mondavi of Argentina. He got into the Argentine wine business so long ago that he wasted quite a lot of time feeling over-reverential about Cabernet Sauvignon and was for long a bit too blasé about Argentina’s own red wine grape Malbec. But now he admits that Mendoza Malbec is so good, there should be an all-Malbec version of his top of the line Zapata bottling (which this is not).
Nevertheless, this wine really over-delivers. It is serious, grown-up red wine by any measure which is already drinking well but has the structure to continue to develop for the next four or five years. Elevation is all in Mendoza and this wine is made up of a bend of fruit from four notably high vineyards: Angelica vineyard in the Lunlunta district (860 m), Altamira vineyard in La Consulta district (1180 m), Uxmal vineyard in the Agrelo district (940m) and Adrianna vineyard in Gualtallary (as high as 1,500 m).
Incidentally, this wine has a very different character from the Colomé I recommended last April and which did so well in our FT/OCW tasting recently. Quite apart from the fact that the Colomé is not 100% Malbec and from Salta hundreds of miles north of Mendoza, the Colomé is wild and woolly whereas the Catena wine is extremely civilised – more of a lounge lizard than a larrikin.
In the UK Majestic have one of their usual special offers, this time on all Argentine wines. You get 20% off if you buy two bottles of any Argentine wine so the per bottle price of this wine falls from £10.99 (which I think is a tad too much) to a very fair £8.79. The best price available in the US currently according to winesearcher.com, $14.98, is a real bargain. Just be wary when interpreting the winesearcher results to which the link here leads you. Catena also make cheaper wines with the words Alamos and Argento in the name which will also be displayed. When looking for stockists of this well distributed wine, eliminate any listing with the word Alamos or Argento.