2000 Abacela Malbec (Oregon)

[dananne]

Yes, a malbec from Oregon. Their specialty is tempranillo, but last night's creepy, raging t-storms made me pick the "black grape."

Dense color, very inky purple/blue. Nose of blackberry and plum. Very thick and full-bodied, with flavors of the blackberries and plums, minerals and earth. Finishes very long, with blueberry pie and light vanilla. Structured with tannins that say to sit on this for a few years, but it really was a fun wine to try young. 13.5% alc. $21 special order from my local wine shop that doesn't carry Abacela.

I really love this quirky little winery -- I've had their tempranillos, merlots, cab francs, syrahs and have yet to be really disappointed (except for the admittedly kinda high prices and the fact that I always have to go through an ordering hassle to get them -- Lord, please give GA direct shipping!).

[barnesy]

They are pretty interesting, I just find their quality to price ration to be way out of line. I'd rather buy a wine at half the price that's just as good, and you can find them all to readily.

Barnesy

[dananne]

I totally agree. As I said, the high prices are a disappointment, even though I find the wines very interesting and have enjoyed everything I've tried between the 1998 and 2000 vintages.

Take the above malbec, for example. It really doesn't have anything on the regular malbec bottling from Catena, which costs a few bucks less, and for P/Q I'd prefer Terrazus de los Andes malbec for about $10. Same goes for their tempranillos -- with so many fine bottles out of Spain right now at the $10 price point (often less), it can be a bit hard to justify spending $30 on one from Abacela. If I'm going to spend that, I may as well buy a Castello Ygay Gran Reserva from Murrieta.

That having been said, I still enjoy their wines (if not their prices)!

[Innkeeper]

Here's my own private thread on a tempranillo from Argentina that goes for a whopping $8: http://www.wines.com/ubb2/Forum19/HTML/000067.html