Miguel Aime Pouget, Mendoza (Argentina) Malbec 2016

This youthful Malbec from Argentina shows all of this variety’s virtues with none of the vices that sometimes afflict the genre.  The color is very impressively dark and the fruit sharply focused, with intense blackberry character but no overt sweetness and no excess wood.  Fully extracted but not harsh, this achieves real punch based on the character of the fruit rather than cellar tricks.  Already very promising for grilled red meat dishes, this will likely achieve additional complexity with another year or two of bottle aging.  A Double Gold award winner at the 2017 Toast of the Coast Wine Competition.