AnuvaBlog

What I want to know is why doesn’t Cavagnaro Reserve Malbec 2004 have about 99 points from Robert Parker, Wine Spectator, Steven Tanzer and the rest.

It is hands down one of the top Malbecs made in Argentina yet no one knows about it.We opened a bottle for a tasting 3 days ago and decided to finish the bottle tonight. What lusciousness and wonder! It’s like a carnivorous, smoke filled, overripe black cherry with the richness of a cheesecake and an aroma of a country kitchen where pies are being baked.

Put that with a rich pork tenderloin (especially when it’s from Argentina) and some baked sweet potatoes on oil and my welcome party back to Buenos Aires was a hit. For my palate at least.

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Pork bellies are not the most commonly eaten food in America. Mostly because we are not used to eating such a large quantity of fat–obvious fat–on our cuts of meat. We are trained to cut off the fat.

The luscious and aggressive tannins in the Cavagnaro Malbec, though, make it the perfect wine to go with such a fatty meat. The grease of the pork belly, coating your mouth with a succulent swine flavor, washes completely away with the tannin of this Malbec leaving  a slightly smokey aftertaste.

I personally had never been a fat of such fatty cuts of meat before trying this, but it certainly worked for me. I hope that you are all out there experimenting with new food and wine combinations and get lucky like I did. Learn by doing!

Sommeliers come in all shapes and sizes. Most sommeliers at restaurants will have been in charge or at least had a major part of the creation of the wine list and therefore know that list intimately. But this also means that they will tend to be tied to the wine they have put on their list. Understandable since they are trying to sell you wine for your dinner.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, though, this means that all of the wine will be from Argentina. Not unusual in a protectionist country. In Argentina, foreign wine hardly exists except for at the most posh of restaurants (like 3) and wine shops (literally 3). A sommelier in Argentina, therefore, and especially in Buenos Aires, will be recommending Argentine wine. Funny, that’s what I recommend.

But since wine is all about taste its good to know what you like and how to communicate that idea to the sommelier. If you like fruit forward, young malbecs, then about 50% of all wines made in Argentina will appeal to you. If you like more herbaceous, tannic wines, and actually know what that means, then a sommelier should have no trouble picking one from his list.

Why not start with the basics, though, which is probably what the sommelier will do anyway? Red or white, price range, regional preference, varietal preference. After narrowing this down then, the sommelier will usually try to push you into a slightly higher price range since s/he will work inevitably on commission.

A sommelier must  always ask what you are eating because  food combining is an art, and the sommelier should have designed his/her list around the food at the restaurant.

The same goes for buying at a wine shop. Narrow the choice of wine down by region, price, varietal, characteristics and food combining and you’re good to go.