2014 Handcraft Malbec, Tastings 91 Points!

At Kats Wine and Spirits, we strive to bring our customers wines with an excellent price to score ratio, and with the Handcraft 2014 Malbec, we have a real winner on our hands. With a 91 score, the tasting team (Tasho, Jimm, and Andrew) decided to see how this Malbec would respond to a little decanting.

From the start, this wine had a very inviting aroma with inky blackberries, dark plum skins, dry cooking chocolate, and dried herbs filling the decanter in the first five minutes.  Each interval brought a new flavor to the party with soft purple flowers and cocoa powder at 10 minutes, blackcurrants and faint peppercorns at 15, and a soft minerality at 20 minutes.

At 20 minutes, our first taste delivered an exceedingly generous 45+ second finish of rich fruits and a soft, powdery minerality that stayed even longer. With just 20 minutes of patience, this wine delivers a range of fruits on the palate with yellow plums, tart black cherries, hints of baked dark fruits, and blackberries, all complimented by a light taste of cocoa powder.

However, this wine was not finished.  At 35 minutes, a lovely anise scent arrived to complicate the nose further.  By 50 minutes, the melding of flavors, silky texture, and soft powdery minerality had us saying the wine was well worth twice its price.

While the 91 point score from Tasting’s.com is no slouch, we feel that this Malbec and its dash of Zinfandel is worth an extra point. We give the Handcraft 2014 Malbec a Kats 92, and at $11.98, it’s our best sub-$15 Malbec out of California!

2014 Casarena Estate Malbec, Mendoza -Suckling 92

2014 Casarena Estate Malbec, Mendoza (Suckling 92): The 2014 Casarena Estate Malbec is from famed Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina.  By the end of our experience, Jimm and I (Tasho) were amazed at how delicious and easy drinking this wine is while still displaying intriguing minerality. After vigorously agitating in a decanter, an initial nose of sweet charred oak, rich vanilla extract, and blackberries with faint sage emerged. At 10 minutes, aromas of damson plums join with a whiff of dried dill. On the palate, the juicy blackberries and luscious plums finish with slight spice and attractive minerality. At 25 minutes, a lightly floral aspect like violets adds complexity with faint wet chalk or a slight soapiness. By 45 minutes in, the fruit is becoming even more textured in revealing a red-fruit dimension like cherries. The wine is elegantly balanced with juicy acidity keeping the wine light on its feet while gracefully delivering rich fruits. Everything that this wine does is in perfect harmony. It's like each flavor was meant to go with the other in the proportions delivered. Malbecs don't get much better at $16, and the ones that are won't appeal to as many as this one.

2015 Amalaya Malbec, Salta, Argentina (Decanter 94 Points)

Any wine that survives the three-judge gauntlet of Decanter with a score of 94 is worth a look in our book, even more when that wine comes in at under $20 a bottle. The Amalaya 2015 Malbec fits that bill, and after our tasting, we discovered that this is not your average Argentinian Malbec.

With decanting in mind, we recommend delving into the scent of the wine at 25 minutes with a few test sips to follow in the next 10 minutes. From 35 minutes out, the wine truly shows its character and can be fully enjoyed. 

We poured this wine into a decanter, and after five minutes of vigorous agitation, we found that the initial nose was filled with soft scents of gunpowder and cocoa powder. At 15 minutes, the cocoa powder had asserted itself to be the dominant flavor while scents of dried wintergreen and dark fruits were lurking in the shadows.

At 25 minutes, hints of vanilla began to pierce through the cocoa powder cover whereas 30 minutes of decanting allowed an array of juicy plums and black cherries to shine on the palate with a solid 30-second finish.

Now 35-45 minutes in, this wine shows just how unique of a Malbec it is when the palate and nose fill with burnt matchstick, underripe strawberries, blueberries, and crabapples. Finally, at the 1-hour mark, a minerality emerged with notes of salt and yellow plums.

Throughout the tastings, we were intrigued by the character of this Amalaya Malbec.  There is a remarkable acidic energy beyond that typical for the varietal making it a fantastic food wine made for spring patio weather.  With such acidity, this wine would pair perfectly with freshly grilled ribeyes or lamb chops. However, it's not limited to the grill; this wine can be the new best friend for your meat lovers pizza, beef roast, rich cheeses, or any fatty, stick to your ribs fare. 

If you've been struggling to decide which wine should go with your Sunday dinner, we have your answer with the Amalaya 2015 Malbec.

- Andrew Dunaway

2014 Casarena Estate Malbec, Mendoza (Suckling 92)

The 2014 Casarena Estate Malbec is from famed Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina and was reviewed an impressive 92 out of 100 by the former senior editor of Wine Spectator, James Suckling.  By the end of our experience, Jimm and I (Tasho) were amazed at how delicious and easy drinking this wine is while still displaying intriguing minerality. After vigorously agitating in a decanter, an initial nose of sweet charred oak, rich vanilla extract, and blackberries with faint sage emerged. At 10 minutes, aromas of damson plums join with a whiff of dried dill. On the palate, the juicy blackberries and luscious plums finish with slight spice and attractive minerality. At 25 minutes, a lightly floral aspect like violets adds complexity with faint wet chalk or a slight soapiness. By 45 minutes in, the fruit is becoming even more textured in revealing a red-fruit dimension like cherries. The wine is elegantly balanced with juicy acidity keeping the wine light on its feet while gracefully delivering rich fruits. Everything that this wine does is in perfect harmony. It's like each flavor was meant to go with the other in the proportions delivered. Malbecs don't get much better at $16 and the ones that are won't appeal to as many as this one.