Well, back from BA on a recent business trip, I could hardly believe this shocker: BA is smoke free, that is the restaurants, bars, and (cough) even cafés. For years, I always contemplated and experienced BA and its culture through a lingering, thick haze of nicotine and smoke. Espressos with no fags? unthinkable. A fernet-cola without a puff? not doable. Dancing at milongas until the wee hours without cigs. I'll stop now. It was city where I was once told by a friend who was a pack-a-day die hard smoker that as a "non smoker", I had no right to complain (of the smoke). Hence, as you can see, it came a total surprise when Ley 1799 enforcing the non-smoking law, went into effect in October. Perhaps for me it was a Hallelujah, arriving to bed not smelling like a stale cigarette but I wondered how BA would continue to function. Somehow it has and the law is even being enforced (something that did not happen in Santiago when they recently tried to pass a similar decree). One word of advice though: hold your breathe walking out the door; the cigarette fiends gather rain or shine outside the local to get their fix. But fair is fair I suppose.
I asked this somewhat grotesque wine question at a dinner party not long ago, although my intentions were quite innocent; I simply wanted to understand why more and more I was running across these somewhat jarring “mousey”, “poopy”, “sweaty saddle” or “barnyard” smells in Chilean and even Argentinean wines on a regular basis. Wasn’t that a “European” wine characteristic like in many Southern Rhone wines or Bordeauxs? Although some fruit aromas still persisted, they seemed to be shrouded in what could be called a manure-esque earthiness. “Liz”, said a winemaker friend across the table, “these leathery or earthy, sweaty notes are very common in European wines and add complexity in small concentrations. It’s caused by a natural yeast known as Brettanomyces.” Oh, what he meant to say was, in wine geek parlance, “it’s “Brett”. So why are they (deliberately?) appearing in New World wines here in Chile?For some grape varieties, the equator is a mirror. Their southern-hemisphere persona reflects the northern original, albeit with a few tweaks in volume and pungency. Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Muscat and Sauvignon Blanc are all, once installed under the southern cross, plainly recognisable from their passport photographs.
For other grape varieties, by contrast, the equator is a prism. The south does something different to them; they suffer a sea-change and almost always into something richer and stranger than their northern selves. Australian Shiraz is mostly unrecognisable when compared to the lean beast that prowls the hill of Hermitage; Sémillon and Chenin Blanc, too, sprout new personalities under a southern sun. And as for Argentine Malbec . . .
Back in France this grape is a kind of odd-job red, popping up in regions as disparate as Cabardès, Bordeaux and Anjou and assuming a wide variety of aliases (such as Auxerrois and Côt). Only on the gravel terraces of Cahors does it achieve greatness: dark, inky wines with a rugged chin line and a markedly ferrous note, as if each bottle contained a teaspoon of iron filings. Elsewhere, it's a grouchy stiffener.
It was imported to Argentina in the mid-19th century and flourished in the desert oasis of Mendoza, the source of 70 per cent of the country's wine (and 90 per cent of its wine exports). Familiarity bred contempt: 30,000 hectares of old-vine Malbec were torn up in the 1960s and 1970s, when Cabernet was thought to be the coming red. Cabernet does indeed perform well here and the two varieties blend happily, yet few doubt now that Mendoza Malbec is that most precious of national viticultural assets: a world original.
Its quality potential is impressive. Might it one day produce the most complex and food-friendly red wines in the southern hemisphere? There's a chance. The best combine a soaring fruit line with a distinctively perfumed, violet note. The fact that they are high-grown (many of Mendoza's vineyards would, if resited in Wales, top Snowdon) means cool nights, lending their plum fruit a vivacious acid balance. They may find it hard to match the sweet, glossy seduction of Chile's top reds but in terms of extractive interest - an earthy, textured bass to balance out the melodic fruit line - the finest have few southern-hemisphere peers. With food, it is those earthy, chewy flavours that tend to lend ambitious red wines their dignity and grandeur.
Not all southern-hemisphere Malbecs are successful; weaker Argentinian examples rely too much on dry oak tannin rather than sweet grape tannin and the variety's high-yielding contentment under the Andean snows mean that some wines are hollow or lack those precious bass notes. Almost none have the mineral-metallic note of Cahors. And their pricing is amusingly inconsistent. In the blind tasting I organised for this article (joined by non-professional tasters), one of the most universally liked wines cost just £5.95 and the two top wines were both under £10, whereas the tasting included a number of wines at more than £15. (It should be noted that some of the most ambitious Argentine Malbecs are not yet available in the UK, including Michel Rolland's Val de Flores and Californian consultant Paul Hobbs' Cobos.)
The two producers who seem to have succeeded best with the variety share a Bordeaux background. Hervé Joyaux at Fabre-Montmayou was a former négociant for Ginestet, a man who was "seduced" by Mendoza Malbec into emigrating; he set about buying up old-vine parcels at a time when most were grubbing them up. The 2003 Fabre-Montmayou Malbec (Wine Society, tel: +44 (0)1438-740 222, £5.95) is unshowy but profoundly satisfying; I can't think of a better sub-£6 red than this beautifully bustling, beefy red with its brilliantly judged drinking balance, soft yet textured, its plum fruits gently modulating towards clean, liquorice-edged finish. To find a wine whose fruit is drawn from vines of more than 50 years old at this price is remarkable. The Fabre-Montmayou 2003 Gran Reserva Malbec (Wine Society, £7.95) is also shatteringly good value. It's a darker, leggier, more perfumed wine that shows some of that delicious yet elusive violet character on both nose and palate. There is more oak but it's seamlessly integrated and the tannic mass is splendid: ample yet soft and dimpled. The balance, purity and polish of this wine is world-class. Fabre Montmayou's main importer, Vinothentic (tel: +44 (0)20-7354 1994), has another Malbec cuvée at £8, from the 2004 vintage this time, which is dark, scented and brooding; it will evolve splendidly for a year or two.
Almost as good are the wines of Alta Vista, the winery originally established by Pomerol proprietor Jean-Michel Arcaute of Château Clinet and taken over after his premature death by the d'Aulan family. The 2003 Alta Vista Premium Malbec (Lay & Wheeler, tel: +44 (0)1473-313 233, £7.45) has a more aggressive style than Fabre Montmayou's pair but is a wine of remarkable dissolved energy. It's well worth making the step up, though, to the 2004 Alta Vista Grande Reserve Malbec Terroir Selection (Lay & Wheeler, £9.95): aromatically this is a more intriguing wine, its scents a typical combination of plums and moist coal; the palate brings blackcurrant and blackberry into the equation, backing them with suavely ample tannins. Again, the wine has enviable balance, weight and poise.
If you want to see the violet character of Malbec at its most exuberant, try the young-vine 2005 Ique from Enrique Foster (Private Cellar, tel: +44 (0)1353-721 999, £7.76): enticingly aromatic, this is like a kind of supercharged southern hemisphere Crozes-Hermitage. The 2003 Ruca Malen Malbec (Corney & Barrow, tel: +44 (0)20-7265 2400, £8.99) needs decanting but is dense, vigorous and complete. Weinert's 2000 Malbec (Sainsbury's, tel: +44 (0)800-636 262, £7.49) is savoury and moreish.
Argentina's leading producer, Trapiche, is taking Malbec laudably seriously and has produced three ambitious single-vineyard selections (www.longfordwines.co.uk, 2004 vintage from November, £18.99). All need less oak and denser, riper tannins but the intensity of their fruit is remarkable; my favourite is the 2004 Viña Carlos Gei Berra from Lunlunta, the most amply built of the three. The influential Nicolas Catena is also moving towards the creation of great Malbec and his company has carried out an ambitious clonal research programme. The 2003 Catena Alta Malbec (Bibendum, tel: +44 (0)20-7722 5577, £25.76), a blend of the company's top Malbec vineyards, is shapely and vivacious but with an over-assertive curranty streak to the finish. It's good wine - but vastly over-priced by comparison with the wines of Fabre-Montmayou and Alta Vista.