Balbo Baggins Goes to Egypt
In the interests of fairness in my search for the best cheap Malbec I unearthed this little number at Tesco.
Now you might presume that Anubis comes from Egypt but in fact it is from Middle Earth (aka Argentina). I can prove this is the case because I discovered that Susana Balbo (aka Balbo Baggins) had a hand in making this wine.
This is a name that keeps appearing whenever I review Malbec. You will recall that the excellent Balbo Malbec at £11.95 from the Wine Society was at an eye watering £42 on the wine menu of the Gaucho Grill.
At 13.5% (I don’t see a reason for good red wine to be any more alcoholic than this) it’s right on the mark with a very smooth flavour of raspberries and ice cream with dark chocolate sauce and just a touch of smokiness.
Not as bitter as a lot of Malbecs but this one is absolute proof that Malbec goes terrifically well with steak, especially a reasonably well aged one. I drank it with a barbecued rump (first barbie of 2007 – glorious weather in the UK in April).
Very good value at £4.49 for this 2004 vintage.
Regular readers will know that it won’t be enough for me to grant forgiveness to troubled former Argie football star, Diego Maradona (for the 1986 “hand of God” incident) but I do now accept that Malbec wine is not made by cheats and in that sense there is hope yet for the football team.