Hey friends and wine lovers how are you? it's been a while since I've made a
video, so first of all welcome back it's great to be here. I'm Marc Supsic,
certified wine and spirits professional and I'm the creator of Wine Living.
I started this series called, "the best
wines for beginners" to help people who were just starting out drinking wine to
get in at the ground level and learn about some really fantastic wines. if you
need just enough information to dive in that's what you're gonna get here I'll
give you some history on the wine I'll give you some tips on how to drink it
and enjoy it and also some food pairing suggestions too so far this series of
videos has been viewed over a hundred thousand times so thank you now for
those of you who like big bold red wines you're going to want to stay tuned
because today we're going to talk about Malbec
fans of big heavy red wines we're in for a real treat when they try them all back
one of the most surprising things about Malbec is that it's not from Argentina
most people think it is but it's actually genetically traced to France in
Bordeaux it was used for centuries to blend in with other grapes in very
high-end wines that's one of the reasons why so few people know it not Malbec
because it was sort of hidden in these blended wines for so long so for
centuries Malbec thrived in the lower southwest
corner of France predominantly in an area known as the lot Valley named after
the LA River by the medieval times some of the best quality Malbec coming out of
France was coming from a small town by the name of Cowell or to this day you
can still identify some of the best French Malbecs by just looking on the
label for the region of Cowell or by the way in this part of France they actually
don't even call the grape or the wine Malbec they have two major names that
they go high there's Cot, C-O-T and there's Auxerrois, but from what I
understand there are over a thousand different regional names for this grape
and this wine depending on what part of the Southwest you're in so how then did
French Malbec get lost to history and then reborn as an Argentine wine like a
lot of agricultural products from Europe it was brought to Argentina on a whim in
the 1800s and it stayed there uncelebrated for about a century in the
1950s something unexpected happened a major frost in France almost wiped out
the entire crop of cut in cohort and the surrounding regions it was pretty
devastating to the wine makers of qohor and it would take the region decades to
recover but in the meantime Argentina gained momentum and eventually became
the top producer of Malbec wines Malbec is now the most planted wine grape in
all of Argentina although I love Malbec from Argentina I really really encourage
you to look for some Malbec from Cowell or this year is the original Malbec and
I think it tastes a lot different so generally speaking here are what I think
are some of the big differences between Malbec from kawar and Malbec from
Argentina Malbec from France and Cowell tends to
be a little bit more lean some people describe it as even muscular if that
makes any sense but if you like tart and complex flavors things like dried
cranberries dark chocolate and even coffee bean then this is something that
you've got to try personally I think French Malbec is at its best with at
least five years of age or more when it starts out young it's a little bit lean
and mean and taut and it needs some time to relax a little bit on the other hand
if you like big red wines that kind of come at you with the fruit flavors
things like blackberries strawberries and vanilla then Malbec from Argentina
is gonna be more of your style as far as food pairing is concerned if you want to
go full-on French cow or Malbec is born to be paired with duck we visited this
region of France years ago and duck was being served practically everywhere
especially duck liver pate and foie gras I guess it makes sense that the wine is
also an amazing partner for roasted poultry - Malbec from Argentina I think
is more geared for grilled meats like beef and lamb also big hearty stutes as
is often the case with grapes baalbek has roamed around the world now at this
point and you can get great examples of Malbec from California and even the east
coast of the United States where I live and as far as price is concerned you can
pay as little as ten dollars for a very drinkable bottle of Malbec many of the
French Malbec SAR more moderately priced and on the high-end some luxury Malbec
skom and anywhere from $50 to upwards of 100 now this particular brand here is
one of my favorites this is Claude Trigg Adina from Cour when we visited the
region of France we fell in love with their wines
I'm going to break out a separate video and we're going to do a tasting of these
wines so be sure to stay tuned for that all right everybody thanks so much for
watching and I hope you learned something about Malbec if you like what
I'm doing here please do me a favor if you haven't already please subscribe to
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something new enjoy your ball back and I'll catch you on the next video
Cheers