I used to do my wine shopping at a store in North Hampton MA called the big Y, they had a nice selection of beer and wine for all budgets, along with a monthly news letter profiling different regions of the world.
I remember one month the news letter highlighted the wines of Bodega Catena, specificly the Chardonnay from this winery. At the time I wasn't drinking white wine and didn't try, or buy, any of this wine, which was likely my loss. The head winemaker was Pepe Galante, who, with the help of Paul Hobbs, was bringing Argentine wines to the worlds attention....
Pepe left Catena in 2010 to do his own thing, and Puramun Malbec is the result of his efforts. As soon as I opened this wine and poured some in a glass, I knew this was different than most of the Malbec's I've tasted before. It has spicy red fruit in the nose, inviting another swirl and sniff of the glass...red plums, raspberry, a bit of ripe strawberry, then black raspberry, white pepper with a bit of tobacco leaf.
Nice mouth feel right from the start, black plum, cherry, black raspberry, and a nice spicy, lingering finish with a pleasant tartness. The tannins are there, but fine and not overly mouth drying. This wine has a beautiful color, deep red, but not black.
After 30 minutes in the decanter, deeper notes in the glass of blackberry, black plum, black cherry, spice, just a beautiful nose... matching flavors on the palate, with more of a full mouth feel, wonderful spicy finish, not as tart, just delicious to sip on.
I paired this with a regular flavor rotisserie chicken from pricechopper, Swiss rice, and mixed veggies with some garlic herb butter. I spooned the au jus from the chicken over the rice, it was a great match. I think this would be nice as well with prime rib, or garlic-rosemary lamb chops from the grill.
Available at some NH Liquor outlets (W. Leb) for $18.99 per bottle, in my opinion drinks like it should cost way more than it does....
Cheers,
Ed
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