When it comes to big flavor bargains, Argentina’s malbec delivers

At the turn of the 21st century, Argentina was the world’s fifth largest wine-producing nation, but Argentine wines were barely a blip on the radar of the average American wine drinker. Today, these wines are everywhere — particularly the rich red malbecs which have become reliable staples for bargain hunters. Argentina has helped the world fall in love with the malbec grape but has faced little or no competition from similar wines produced elsewhere due to the unusual path taken in the early days of the country’s wine industry.

Many wine regions outside Europe follow the same path: first introducing high-yield workhorse grapes like zinfandel or shiraz to establish a rudimentary wine trade, before uprooting these vines to plant more ambitious “noble” varieties like cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay. This is the natural path if your aim is to make wines modeled on the French classics like red Bordeaux and white Burgundy.

In Argentina, a French agronomist brought cuttings of many European vines to Mendoza in the 1850s and established the country’s most influential wine institution. Malbec was an obscure grape that was in decline in its native France, but proved itself in trials to be ideally suited to the Argentine climate and terrain. From that point forward, malbec was relentlessly promoted as the best bet for vineyard plantings.

Unlike the winemakers of California or Australia, Mendozan vintners rarely deviated from their first love by planting rival grapes. As a result, they have gifted wine lovers everywhere with affordable yet delicious wines like this one. Bursting with flavors of black cherries and blackberry jam, it features malbec’s distinctive velvety mouthfeel and faintly floral scent of violets. And with over five times as much malbec planted in Argentina than any other country, it’s a safe bet that Argentina will own the malbec category for decades to come.

$9.99, 13.5% alcohol

PLCB Item #4369

Sale price through 1/30 — regularly $11.99

Also available at these New Jersey shops:

Canal’s Bottlestop in Marlton, $8.96, canalswine.com; Joe Canal’s in Marlton, $9.99, marltonjoecanals.com; Cheers Wine & Spirits in Voorhees, $11.99, cheers-nj.com.