Domaine Bousquet, Tupungato (Mendoza, Argentina) Malbec 2018

 Domaine Bousquet is making astonishingly strong, high-value reds these days, and everything I tasted from them was a star in its category:  The very best sparkler priced under $13 from outside of Europe; fantastic $12 Cabernet and Malbec, and a phenomenal $18 red blend called “Gaia.”  With those wines acknowledged, however, the single best value in the lot is this remarkably over-achieving Reserva Malbec, which blows up its competition in its price category on grounds of purity of fruit as well as complexity, which almost never happens (you can get nice, pure Malbec, or you can get more complex examples with oaky spice and toast notes, but getting both in a single wine priced in the mid-teens is almost impossible).  This is marvelous Malbec regardless of price, with pure fruit layered over savory and mineral undertones with a lovely saline streak.  Damn!