Tasting Notes
Please note this wine is now only available as a one-bottle gift pack (price includes postage & packaging)
A couple of customers asked me to source a premium Malbec and whilst this Gran Corte wine is a blend with 30% Syrah and 10% Cabernet Franc, it is reflective of the very best Argentinean Malbecs. The addition of the other two grapes softens the Malbec's tannins and provides extra body, perfume and soft texture...
The winery is an alliance between members of two French wine families, Baron Benjamin de Rothschild and Laurent Dassault. renowned oenologist, Michel Rolland, advises. Read more on the Malbec grape.
This Gran Corte wine is complex both on the nose and on the palate with many aromas and flavours. These include creamy dark fruits including black cherries, plums and blueberries plus coffee and hints of liquorice and violets. Subtle smoky spices like pepper and cinammon give a slightly warm feel to the full-bodied wine and the lovely smooth texture gives it a certain elegance. This wine has a long, long finish.
Allow the wine to breathe for 30 minutes before drinking. This wine may throw off a little sediment so it is a good idea to decant the wine. Read more on decanting.
Food Pairing
Recommended to drink with steak (Argentinean of course!), other beef dishes including chilli con carne and other spiced dishes, lamb including tagines, venison, game casseroles, strong flavoured offal, strong cheeses and chocolate
Producer's Notes
"Gran Corte ("great blend") delivers a delicate balance by complementing Malbec's fruitiness with the opulence and spicy notes of Syrah and the freshness of Cabernet Franc."
Awards
92 points The Wine Advocate, Robert Parker Apr 2014
"The 2010 Gran Corte is a blend of 60% Malbec, 20% Syrah and 20% Cabernet Franc which aged for 18 months in brand new French oak barrels and has a complex nose with aniseed, licorice, nutmeg and black pepper aromas intermixed with red and black fruit. This wine combines Mediterranean and Atlantic characteristics with the wood perfectly integrated into the powerful wine. The palate is medium to full-bodied but maintains good balance and elegance, perhaps with some tannins that will benefit from some bottle aging. Drink 2015-2020."
90+ points Vinous Mar 2013
"...Good full medium ruby. Brooding, inky, slightly port-like aromas of blackberry, bitter chocolate and licorice. Then thick, dense and deep, with a chewy sweetness and enticing violet lift to the flavors of blackberry, fig and sexy oak. Big and rich but lively too; a very pure expression of malbec. A bit youthfully clenched today on the fruit-driven back end but the wine's sweet, serious tannins should enable it to gain in texture and pliancy with several years in the bottle."
