Malbec, the signature varietal of Argentina, isn’t a red wine that most people reach for as a rule. Its South American provenance has only been on fine wine drinkers’ radar for a couple of decades, and the vine itself — with its sensitivity to frost and disease, plus its tendency to make ham-handed, tannic wines — just hasn’t been able to achieve the kind of profile of, say, cabernet sauvignon or merlot.

And that’s a crying shame. Or at least that was the conclusion of the Ladies Tasting Society after blind-sampling our way through nine delicious malbecs last week. Overall, we thought these wines were expertly crafted, surprisingly drinkable (even “silky” and “juicy” by some ladies’ estimation), and attractively priced (our average expenditure was $24 per bottle, even though we set ourselves a limit of $45). Not one struck us as clunky or flawed. All of them underlined our mental note-to-self to buy, pop, and enjoy more malbec in our lives.

For the results of our tasting, including a delish best value: click here:

The top wine of the evening won, perhaps, with a few unfair advantages. At $40, the Monteviejo “Lindaflor” was the most expensive bottle on the table. And we might have guessed, too, that French winemaker Michel Rolland was behind the Lindaflor: it showed the flashy, blockbuster, highly concentrated style that the controversial “flying winemaker” brings to many of the wines he works on, and that tends to perform really well in blind tastings. Nonetheless, we were all impressed with the Lindaflor’s inky black color, its power (“almost syrup,” commented one lady), and its complex array of aromas (cherry, barnyard, leather strap) and tastes (black and red fruit, tobacco, cedar, spices). It was the only wine that we agreed would be even better in five our ten years.

The tasting brought some surprises, though. Our least favorite, Cicchitti’s Gran Reserva Malbec, is another internationally-styled malbec that sports a 94 rating from Robert Parker. But where he got full-bodied and hedonistic, we got lighter-weight, ruby-colored, and just plain “weird.” We couldn’t warm to the Cicchitti’s tart flavors, zingy mouthfeel, and green, stemmy notes. Perhaps something woeful happened to our bottle in transit, because a few ladies detected off flavors, including ammonia, banana, and even raw hot dog.

The other surprise was a bottle of Cahors, which I snuck into the otherwise all-Argentine tasting. Cahors is a wine region in southwest France, the only one that produces wines made from the malbec grape. In fact, as wineries in Bordeaux use less and less malbec in their prestigious reds, Cahors remains one of the few areas in France that still cultivates much malbec at all. It wasn’t our favorite, but Chateau La Caminade’s Cahors “La Commandery” impressed us with its nice smoke, pencil lead, and fruit aromas, expressive cherry cranberry notes, and good structure. Although I’d decanted it for two hours, though, the Cahors’s tannins were still too prominent and drying to compete with the up-front friendliness of its Argentinean counterparts.

The most pleasant surprise of the evening was our best value wine, Pascual Toso’s Reserve. This was the wine that had all the silkiness the ladies desired, plus almost the same level of complexity and density as the Lindaflor. At $17, the Toso Rerserve will make it much easier for us to drink lots more malbec without risking a financial crisis on Main Street.

Best of Tasting
Monteviejo Malbec “Lindaflor” 2005 $40
Best Value
Pascual Toso Malbec Reserve 2006 $17
Other Favorites (on order of our preference)
Bodegas Terrazas de los Andes, Malbec Gran 1997 $30 new
Navarro Correas Malbec Gran Reserva 2002 $20
Inacayal Malbec Select 2005 $20
Bodega Catena Zapata, Catena Malbec 2006 $24
Chateau La Caminade Cahors “La Commandery” 2005 $21
Bodega Noemia de Patagonia Malbec “A Lisa” 2007 $22
Bodega Cicchitti Malbec Grand Reserve 2006 $22