This was a gift from a CellarTracker user (fingers) who visited my home last year at our first (and only to date) CellarTrackerPalooza. (Although our London contingent is getting ready for their own upcoming event.) He said he was ashamed that I had no Malbec and nothing South American in my cellar. Well he was able to fix that condition for a year with this bottle which I finally opened last night. A nice enough wine. For now I don’t think it will get me running out to go shopping for Southern American wines, but this one bottle has done more than MrBigJ will in a lifetime to get me interested.
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2001 Vina Alicia Malbec Special Harvest - Argentina, Mendoza, Lujan de Cuyo (5/30/2009)
This opened with dark fruit, oak tones (chocolate, coffee) and a tightly wound bit of tobacco. Very rich at first, faintly reminiscent of a Quilceda Creek Cabernet with some raspberry tones on the palate. Rather pleasing, rather new world. With more aeration this showed more stalky and herbal notes. Quite chewy tannins actually, getting deeper, darker and more sulky. This seems to have lots of gas in the tank, but I am worried that this will get more herbaceous with more aging. Ample structure, very chewy. The longer this aerates the more obviously structured it seems. Seems like no hurry to drink up, and maybe a couple more years will subdue some of the oak and tannin. (89 pts.)
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(BTW, I hope we can get fully automated CellarTracker posting going on over here and am in touch with the right geeks. This copy/paste stuff is for the birds.)