Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with grilled or smoked meats such as beef, pork, and lamb. Also complements dishes prepared with cheese or cream sauces. This is some seriously sexy Malbec.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Amorio is 100% Malbec sourced from an ungrafted 43-year-old vineyard and aged for 16 months in 60% new French oak before bottling without fining or filtration (as are all of these wines). Purple-colored with legs that coat the glass, it exhibits an expressive nose of balsam wood, smoke, spice box, lavender, and black cherry. This leads to a medium-bodied, elegant style of Malbec with plenty of savory fruit and incipient complexity. Give this lengthy offering 2-3 years of additional cellaring and drink it from 2012 to 2024.
There are few wine brands that reflect the sensibilities of their owner more than Tikal. A skilled horseman, fashion designer, software developer, and book editor, Ernesto pursues all that gives pleasure in life. This hedonism (in the best sense of the word) shows through in the wines. It is a style meant to provide enormous pleasure rather than provoke contemplation; an expression of emotion rather than intellect. He has named his wines with passion in mind: Patriota (Patriot), Corazon (Heart), Amorio (Love Affair), Jubilo (Rejoice).
Luis Reginato is the winemaker at Tikal as of the 2002 vintage. Luis is young, but is already a highly trained and respected vineyard consultant and winemaker with long experience at his family's winery in Mendoza. Truly an up and coming talent, Luis and his wines are already garnering high praise from U.S. wine critics. Definitely a winemaker to watch.
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.