Dinner Xara Lodge on the 24th of October 2023

Daniel and Garreth chose Malbec as their theme this October and credit to them for offering us wines from 4 different regions, giving us malbecs from its traditional home, the south-west of France where unfortunately, despite Cahors being far from unknown to wine aficionados, was not well known to the general drinking public and was not considered an important grape until Argentina revived the variety and now produces 75% of the world’s malbec wines. 

The Nicolas Catena is a worthy representative of the type of quality Malbec Argentina can produce (when makers try to rise above offering mass produced commercial plonk) and received my highest vote together with the Culmina which I had never met before and was surprised (pleasantly) came from Canada, a country not usually associated with fine wine making.

I found both these wines paired well with the menu, in particular with the beef fillet with dark fruit, herbs and even chocolate flavours.  Both were well balanced with good acidity and tannins.

All four wines were very alcoholic and that may explain why unusually the consumption was on the (relatively) low side of one bottle per head.  Had we drunk our usual 1.2 average, I think  most of us would have needed to be taken out in a wheelbarrow.

Iro