Wine of the Week: Dona Paula Los Cardos Malbec

Wine: Dona Paula Los Cardos Malbec

Grape: Malbec

Region: Mendoza, Argentina

Vintage: 2013

Price: $6.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor, other wine retailers

In the glass: Los Cardos Malbec is an opaque dense purplish color with a pitch-black core going out into a deep violet rim definition with high viscosity.

On the nose: Many pungent notes jump out of the glass, but predominantly black fruit character with crushed black cherries, bramble, warm blueberry pie, spices, licorice, pepper and hints of coffee grounds, mocha and dark chocolate over soft minerals.

On the palate: This wine makes an entrance with a massive concentration of black peppered fruit, cherry crush, sloe fruit and loads of licorice-laden berries. The acidity is striking. It creates a great melange with the fruit and the tannins through the midpalate, thereby giving the wine a powerful backbone and a good sense of balance. It carries through to the finish that lingers for a good 20-plus seconds with hints of toast, coffee and anise.

Odds and ends: Malbec may be the world’s most successful grape vine transplant. After having been brought to Argentina by the French in the mid-19th century, this grape varietal has proved not only that it thrives beyond reasonable expectations in the vast Mendoza region, but also that it far exceeds the quality that can be achieved in its original home of Bordeaux, France. Malbec is a hardy, late-ripening grape variety and the rugged climate of the foothills of the Andes mountain range is what it needed to be just right in time for harvest, which is always in the spring and therefore six months before the same vines in the Northern Hemisphere. Vina Dona Paula, apart from being named for the family’s matriarch, is a diverse winery operation that makes several delicious lines of wines, but none quite as distinctive for the varietal characteristic as this malbec. Coming from Mendoza, where everything wine in Argentina originates it seems, perhaps the influence of the great Andes Mountains can explain the forward-showing 2013. It’s a smokin’ deal at less than $7. It demands steak medium rare with lots of peppercorn sauce. Drink it now through 2018.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.