Forget World Malbec Day. Let’s Make It World Malbec Month
Argentina saved Malbec, and that’s worth more than a day of celebration. It’s hard to image the U.S. wine market without it.
Malbec, as we know, is indigenous to France, where it was widely grown in Bordeaux until a particularly brutal winter in 1956 killed off a majority of the vines. Malbec had never been particularly easy to work with in Bordeaux, as it was susceptible to a variety of ailments such as coulure, which is a failure of the grape cluster to fully develop during a chilly or rainy spring. More reliable grape varieties were planted in its place.
Malbec is still grown under the name Cot in the southwestern French region of Cahors, but production isn’t large enough for it to leave a global impression.
How did Malbec make it to Argentina? We know that in the mid-nineteenth century the seventh president of Argentina, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, instructed a French agronomist named Michel Pouget to bring grapevine cuttings to Argentina from France. Among those cuttings was Malbec, which ended up thriving in the climate and soils of Mendoza, now the epicenter of the wine industry.
Malbec now represents 38.6% of the total red varieties and 22.4% of the total cultivated area in Argentina.
April 17 is World Malbec Day, because on that day in 1853, an initiative was approved to adopt the French appellation system and continue to plant international grape varieties in an attempt to bolster the reputation of the Argentine wine industry.
Today, GVI Wines is proud to offer the wines of Ricardo Santos, a pioneering producer of age-worthy Malbec who first presented the wine to the American market. Another GVI Wines producer, Aniello, crafts a fresher style of Malbec from the rugged extremes of Argentina’s Patagonia region. We’re also honored and thrilled to feature Funckenhausen Vineyards, a German-Argentine family property that produces some of the most approachable, fruit-forward Malbec we’ve ever tasted.
So raise a glass of your favorite Malbec and celebrate the meteoric rise of a wine that was almost lost forever.
