Château Armandière Ancestral Malbec Cahors 2019

The 2019 Château Armandière Ancestral Malbec from the grape’s ancestral home is a polished, traditional Cahors. Deep in color, the 2019 Château Armandière Ancestral Malbec offers refinement and flavor, offering tantalizing draughts of currant and black fruits mingled with hints of cacao and violets. In the mouth, the wine is sensuous and satisfying, offering nicely balanced berry, currant, and floral tones which flow on a bed of racy tannins. The 2019 Château Armandière Ancestral Cahors is traditional authentic Malbec from the varietal’s place of origin. It is delicious now, but it will improve for several more years in bottle. For optimal enjoyment, we suggest affording the 2019 Château Armandière Ancestral Cahors 15-20 minutes of aeration before enjoying it at cool room temperature (58°-62° F). Anticipated maturity: 2023-2027. Salut!

Château Armandière’s 2019 Ancestral Malbec Cahors is a wine to drink with hearty country cooking or as a means to ward off the chill of night. Cassoulet, sausage and bean dishes, game, and thick heady meat and vegetable stews provide traditional fare to pair with Château Armandière’s Ancestral Malbec. Bacon Wrapped Quail, served with baby carrots and purple fingerling potatoes, in a black cherry red wine reduction provides equal gastronomic pleasure. Marinated steaks, lamb kebobs, and bison burgers also make tasty companions to Château Armandière’s 2019 Ancestral Cahors. Gorgonzola and pear pizzas, smoked meats, and thick slices of cow or sheep’s milk cheeses in the company of crusty French bread make tasty pairings too. Penne pasta served with a heady marinara sauce, roasted eggplant, and grated Parmesan makes for a tasty interlude as well. With comfort food, the 2019 Château Armandière Malbec Cahors truly shines. Bon Appétit!

Bernard Bouyssou is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of winemakers and for many years the driving force behind Château Armandière, a historic Cahors property and the home to some of France’s finest Malbec wines. Cahors, long known for its “black wine” because of Malbec’s propensity to yield deeply colored, highly extracted wine, has long been considered the spiritual home of Malbec.

Château Armandière cultivated 22 hectares (54 acres) of vines spread out on all four of Cahors’s geologically distinct terraces from which Bernard fashioned a bevy of exceptional, award winning Cahors wines, all of which highlight the many facets and virtues of Malbec. Château Armandière’s flagship offering and most traditional Cahors wine is Ancestral – this month’s feature. It is made from 100% Malbec grown on the upper terraces of Cahors, high above the river Lot. The vines for Château Armandière’s Ancestral Cahors average nearly 50 years of age. The 2019 Château Armandière Ancestral is one of the last wines made by Bernard Bouyssou as the property was recently sold.

Malbec is an important red grape variety traditionally associated with the wines of southwest France. It is also one of the original red wine grapes of Bordeaux where it is often referred to as Cot or Pressac. While Malbec is no longer as prominent in Bordeaux as it once was, it still finds its way into many of the region’s red wines and it remains one of the six traditional red grape varieties permitted in red Bordeaux along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, Merlot and Petit Verdot. However, south of Bordeaux in the region of Cahors, Malbec still reigns supreme. It is the chief grape used in what historically has been called the “black wine” of Cahors.

Today, Argentina appears as the face of Malbec to most contemporary American wine drinkers. It is Argentina’s most important grape variety, both in terms of quality and quantity. The best Argentine Malbecs are age-worthy wines of great distinction, thanks to their French connection. Nevertheless, the traditional “black wine” of Cahors remains a reference point for Malbec. The finest Cahors are both polished and intense. They are made exclusively from Malbec grapes grown on the terraces above the river Lot, and they are capable of ageing to perfection for up to a decade or more.