Winemaker Notes
High-toned nose of violet and vanilla, with ripe blackberry and boysenberry fruit. Stays bright and open-knit though the finish, with spice and graphite notes. Perfect for red meat courses cooked any style.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 J. Alberto, a field blend of 95% Malbec and 5% Merlot (planted in 1955), was fermented with native yeasts (as are all Noemia's wines) and aged for 9 months in 30% new French oak before bottling without fining or filtration. Purple-colored, it displays a superb bouquet of sandalwood, spice box, black cherry, and blackberry. This leads to a medium- to full-bodied, silky-textured wine with incipient complexity, succulent flavors, impeccable balance, and a 45-second finish. Give it another 2-3 years to fully blossom and drink it from 2011 to 2020.
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Wine Spectator
Dark and lush on the nose, with lots of raspberry and boysenberry confiture, but this is racy and fresh on the palate, with a great graphite underpinning that lets spice, floral and licorice notes linger on the long finish. Malbec and Merlot. Drink now through 2011.
Most distinguished and celebrated from Argentina’s Mendoza, Malbec has seen runaway success since the early 2000s. Mendoza’s agreeable, continental climate with hot, dry summers and cold snowy winters allows the perfect conditions for growing outstanding Malbec. This grape is easy to like for its lusty, deep flavors and aromas of blackberry, plum, red cherry, autumn spice and tilled earth. It’s easy to find delicious, fruit-driven, affordable everyday examples and in prices beyond, quite exceptional ones with dense, supple textures that make them capable of aging.
HNYNPAAJO08C_2008 Item# 104424