When you have a good wine in your hands, it can actually be very difficult to open it. I’ve been harbouring a special bottle of 10 year old Angelica Zapata Malbec from Mendoza for a while now and although I have no doubt the wine would keep for a couple more years (I can’t say the same for my childlike restlessness) with a few house moves lurking in the very near future I decided not to risk letting it spoil and make the occasion to just open it…
The Occasion: A Saturday night, like any other, although a bit more solitary. Alone at home and with no desire to move from my couch.
The Wine: Angelica Zapata Malbec Alta 2003, Bodega Catena Zapata
The Experience: Malbec can often have a rather wild purple tinge to it, but leave it almost a decade in the bottle and the purple calms down into a brickish red. When you first pour it in the glass the wine gives you truffled mushroom and old leather, give it a whirl and cracked pepper, soft rose petals and dark chocolate dust emerge. In the mouth the wine has smoothened out but has a mini roller coaster on the finish and leaves you with fruit on the tail end. Coming from a blend of their different vineyards around Maipu, Lujan de Cuyo and the Uco Valley this has the multi-layered complexity you’d expect, rounded off with a year in oak. This wine I decanted and drank with a good documentary and later with a friend and some carne al cuchillo empanadas: perfect contemplative but comfy mood to enjoy this wine.
