Irish Monkey Cellars
2006 Malbec - Lodi
$17 / 750 ml.

The Malbec varietal is among the world's most widely grown vines - if you take into account the Argentines. Their focus on the Malbec grape is nearly to the same unusual degree that California took to the almost unknown Zinfandel grape and made it "their State grape". The Malbec variety is noted for being almost blue-violet as a wine. Many wines range from red to deepest ruby or almost fuschia, but few can match the Malbec for bringing the powerful Blue into the wine.

Along with blue color comes a very bass-note character, opposite to the high tones brought by Merlot and often Cabernet Franc or Sangiovese. The Argentines have developed their growing and clone structure so as to be able to produce an excellent all-around wine from the Malbec grape. In Lodi, the growing conditions are very similar, yet the terroir causes the Malbec to produce a deeply inky, silky blueberry like wine.

Most of our Malbec goes over to giving color to our Sangiovese, giving depth to our Syrah and giving a foundation to our Pinot Noir. However, we do bottle the best barrel or two by itself in a very limited reserve, which has the potential to last decades if not centuries.

The Malbec flavor is so deep and complex that there are very few foods that it compliments easily. It does however pair with the "milk cheeses" beautifully, such as Danish Havarti, Irish Dubliner, St. Andre, Clarine and similar semi-soft cheeses. While cured olives don't pair well, red-hot coppa and red-pepper Genoa salame works surprisingly well. The flavor also compliments thick Indian and Kashmir curries.
Serving
Temperature Room Temp The depth of the flavor is perfectly supported by room-temperature serving. It is important to let the wine breathe for at least 1 hour before serving, as it undergoes a complex and very sophisticated post-opening evolution in that period.
Glass Balloon Bowl Just as "room temperature" is suggested for presentation, so too is a large bowl to give plenty of surface area to the evolving flavors. We have done "trials" with the same bottle of wine served in 3 different glasses only differing in bowl size. The malbec just flowers in the largest bowls.
Transition to

Sangiovese
Barbera
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Primitivo
Zinfandel

Since virtually no wine will have the depth of flavor of the Malbec (except possibly the Charbono), it becomes easy to see that the red wine that follows must have fruity-floral character to act as counterpoint. Each of the wines listed to the left does, in differing degree. The Sangiovese in particular makes and excellent follow-on, as directly one can move to the first course, with the lighter bodied wine to compliment it.