Holiday Gift Guide 2020: Malbec

Shop for Malbec

Côt, Pressac, Auxerrois...Malbec wears numerous hats throughout the wine regions of France. In Bordeaux, Malbec is one of the five permitted red grapes, where it is grown in small quantities and used sparingly to add structure and color to the blend. In Southwest France, Malbec is the most widely planted grape of the Cahors region.

While France has many names for it and other regions/countries like California, Australia, and South Africa grow Malbec, it's in the high altitude vineyards and dry climate of Argentina that Malbec wine outclasses most of these other variants, including those from France. The grape thrives just about anywhere in that arid, sunny land, producing wines that are as approachable as a juicy Merlot, though they may also be as structured and long-lived as a Cabernet Sauvignon. Full-bodied and packed with blackberry, dark cherry, olive, mulberry and plum, and sometimes laced with a dash of mocha, vanilla or tobacco, Malbec wine is anything but a skimpy red.